Forgotten Books: AMERICAN FRONTIERSMEN ON FILM and TELEVISION (2005)

This Ring-Tailed Roarer of a book is divided into six parts, one devoted to each of guys mentioned on the cover. Each part then gives you a short biography and an in-depth filmography. That's one hell of a lot of info.

52 pages are devoted to my pal Davy. Dan'l Boone gets 40, Jim Bowie 37, Sam Houston 41, Jim Bridger 35 and Kit Carson 42. For each film or TV series, we get Credits, Cast, Synopsis and Notes. The Synopsis is cool because some of these are lost films, and others so rare it's mighty difficult to see them. The Notes are the most interesting part, and range from two paragraphs to two pages. And there are plenty of photographs, but not so many they get in the way of the information.

The surprising thing is the sheer number of film portrayals of these guys. Did I know Davy had appeared in 38 films? No, I did not. There are at least a dozen I've never seen--and want to. Some were reminders of obscure things I've probably seen, but want to see again, like the Time Tunnel episode where the unwilling travelers land in the Alamo. Boone made 20 appearances, Bowie 26, Houston 28, Bridger 18, and Carson 30. That, of course, was as of the time this book was written. Oddly, there is no publication date or copyright info, though Google thinks it was published in 2005. 

Here are the lists of films discussed for Crockett, Bowie and Houston:

This is an all-around great job of bookmaking. In case you're wonderin', it's a 7 1/4 x 10 1/4" hardcover with a two-column format and laminated cover. Is there a like volume devoted to Western heroes? I don't know, but I'd sure like to have one.