NY TIMES (Oct 24, 1936): “Further evidence of Hollywood’s knack of distorting historical characters into stock figures of blood-and-thunder fiction is presented at the Palace in “Daniel Boone,” which purports to be a reasonably accurate chronicle of the frontiersman’s trek with a party of settlers from Yadkin, N. C., across the trackless Cumberland Mountains up into the fertile country that now is Kentucky.
“Though the film is supposed to be a chapter from the trapper’s life, it resembles a dozen others of a genre which languished when the screen started to talk. With such hoary tradition behind it, the new photoplay could not have failed to be a visually exciting cowboy and Indian drama.
“Among the stock story devices note Daniel tied to the flame-encircled stake, his miraculous escape when the faithful Black Eagle tosses a tomahawk from a cliff and cuts the ties that bind him, Daniel’s flight through underbrush and over mountain with five tribes on his trail, and finally the hand-to-hand struggle with the renegade Simon Girty on the edge of a cliff.
“For all his physical prowess, George O’Brien manages to project Daniel Boone as a shy, unassuming adventurer, which is presumably what the man was. John Carradine plays Simon Girty with all the malice he can command, and sets a new high in facial contortions. Helpful bits are contributed by Heather Angel as the dreamy-eyed girl who wins Boone’s heart, George Regas as Black Eagle, Ralph Forbes and Clarence Muse.”
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