Glad they cut this out


In the scene wherein Davy Crockett and his pal George Russell go alone into the swamp, hunting Redstick and his Creek warriors, there's a moment when they happen upon a nest of baby alligators just barely emerged from their eggs. Davy says, "Mighty cute, ain't they?" and George says, "They won't be so cute when they grow up." Originally Davy was to reply, "Well, that ain't goin' to happen," and start clubbing the baby 'gators to death with the butt of his rifle. Russell was to chuckle and say, "Whoooo-dogies! They sure ain't so cute now!"

It's well known that Walt Dinsey had a dark side, and that's well illustrated by his inserting this macabre moment into Tom Blackburn's screenplay. But what would the point have been? A comment on the savagery of life on the frontier? Would that have been worth undercutting Crockett's likeability? I think not.

Disney also wanted to insert the scene from Crockett's autobiography (and related by Billy Bob Thrornton in 2004's THE ALAMO) in which Crockett and some of the other Tennessee Volunteers ate potatoes cooked in grease that fried off the roasting bodies of some Creeks the volunteers had trapped in a burning cabin. "Whoooo-dogies," Russell would say after his third helping. "I never knew Injun cooking was so tasty!" Now THAT I'd have liked to have seen.

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[deleted]

I'm sorry you didn't find my post as enlightening as I intended. I agree with you, however. There should be more footage of clubbing baby alligators on television.

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i was reading your post while i'm at work and actually laughed out loud. very funny ;)

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As far as the baby alligator scene goes, I was actually afraid when the critters appeared that was what was going to happen, considering they would be seen as harmful to humans and not potentially beneficial, as it's doubtful alligator handbags and shoes were being made at the time. I don't know whether to believe you or not about alligator extermination appearing in the original script.

Regarding the other scene--Davy Crockett, cannibal? I don't believe for an instant this was ever going to make it anywhere near the script, let alone the finished movie. As for the real life incident, it seems they were extremely hungry, which they would pretty well have had to be to resort to this! Here it is in his own words:

"No provisions had yet reached us, and we had now been for several days on half rations. However we went back to our Indian town on the next day, when many of the carcasses of the Indians were still to be seen. They looked very awful, for the burning had not entirely consumed them, but given them a very terrible appearance, at least what remained of them. It was, somehow or other, found out that the house had a potatoe (sic) cellar under it, and an immediate examination was made, for we were all as hungry as wolves. We found a fine chance of potatoes in it, and hunger compelled us to eat them, though I had a little rather not, if I could have helped it, for the oil of the Indians we had burned up on the day before had run down on them, and they looked like they had been stewed with fat meat."

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I always look forward to seeing baby seals being clubbed on tv.

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You just like the idea of Buddy Ebsen saying "Whoooo-dogies!"

cinefreak

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