Identifying who plays Lem's 1950 honor guard
[8/29/2016]
Attempting to connect as many on-screen faces as possible to actors playing Boy Scouts in 'Follow Me, Boys' (1966), I searched the cast list for the film on Imdb.com and watched other film and TV appearances where the boys played named roles that could be identified on-screen, keeping in mind that 'Follow Me, Boys!' was filmed from 7/12/1965 to 1/13/1966 (http://cinchset.com/fmb.html).
Compared to his appearance in the role 'Eddie Hughes' on the 3/13/1963 black & white episode of "Wagon Train" (The Anne Duggan Story), I am virtually certain that the bugler in Lem's 1950 honor guard is Donnie Carter (listed as playing the role of Red in 'Follow Me, Boys!') due to his high forehead, light wavy hair, other facial characteristics and overall size. I am 70 to 80 percent confident that the troop flag bearer in the 1950 honor guard is Kevin Burchette (listed as playing the role of Eggy in 'Follow Me, Boys!) based on his appearance in the role Paul in the 5/9/1967 episode of "The Invaders" (The Condemned). The names Red and Eggy are not spoken in 'Follow Me, Boys!' (1966), but I am working on getting the book 'God and My Country' to see if it mentions the names.
I am aware that a picture of the 1950 bugler and flag bearer credit Michael Fatley (probably a typographic error of Flatley) and Buzz Parlaman, respectively; a link to the photo is attached to the hot text 'Scenes from "Follow Me, Boys!" ' in the Photographs section of External Sites on the Imdb.com page for 'Follow Me, Boys' (1966). I suspect both of these credits are wrong. Buzz Parlaman (a nickname for Sean Simmons who Imdb.com does not list in the 'Follow Me, Boys!' cast) was born 10/30/1958, making him too young because all of the boys listed on Imdb.com who also have birthdays listed were born between 1949 and 1954, including Michael Flatley (born 11/16/1952).
Boys I have not been able to locate on-screen in 'Follow Me, Boys!' (1966) are Colyer Dupont in the cliff scenes (who appeared in no other films or TV episodes), Dean Bradshaw and Michael Mason in the wargames scenes (I can see the two boys, but can’t tell who is who because they appear in no other films or TV episodes), Michael Flatley (who I suspect is an extra in the lawsuit scenes after the wargames scenes), Sherwood Ball, Mike Dodge (who appeared in no other films or TV episodes), and Bryan Russell.
[9/30/2016]
The book 'God and My Country' is of no help when one is researching the movie because they only share generalities. The book actually takes place in a single evening, Friday 2/26/1954, the evening before the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Hickory Boy Scout troop, with most of the book describing Lem Siddons' recollections. Significant differences in the book from the movie include that John Lemuel Siddons was raised in Hickory, Iowa, and in 1910 at age 19 enrolled in Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Ames, Iowa, 19 miles from Hickory. Thursday, 2/27/1914, with Lem as scoutmaster, the Hickory Boy Scout troop had their first meeting. Lem married Vida Marie Downey Saturday 12/19/1914 and a son, John Downey Siddons, was born to them 12/8/1916 by caesarean section. Ed Joyce, a master plumber who drinks too much, wants his son, Kermit Joyce who the other kids call Creamy, to drop out of the Scouts because he thinks it is making Kermit a sissy, citing when a larger boy tried to egg Creamy into a fight he walked away. A high school science teacher from Germany offers to teach the Scouts how to march because he saw that they were not in step at the Decoration Day parade, but Lem puts him off saying we are free and easy here in the United States. There is an incident of a Scout falling from a sandstone cliff, but it is Lem’s own son, Downey, who disobeys Lem’s edict against climbing the sandstone cliffs, but no details of the incident are described because Lem was with a different group of Scouts when it occurred.
[10/14/2016]
Just when I became resigned that I would not learn anything further about the boys in the cast, I watched the DVD featurette 'Looking Back With Lem's Boys' that I had watched when I first watched the movie but had dismissed as containing no "real" information. In it, Warren Hsieh who played Quong Lee in the 1930 segment, Kit Lloyd who played Oliver Davis in the 1944 war games segment, Kevin Burchette who played Eggy in the 1950 segment and Greger Vigen who played Ronnie Larsen in the 1930's cliff segment described some of their recollections. Kevin Burchette described Eggy as the troop flag bearer who carried the troop flag in the car with Fred MacMurray, verifying what I suspected.