Distant Drums is a 1951 American Florida Western film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Gary Cooper. It is set during the Second Seminole War in the 1840s, with Cooper playing an Army captain who successfully destroys a fort held by Spanish gunrunners and is pursued into the Everglades by a large group of Seminoles. The fort used in the film was the historic Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida, and most of the principal photography was shot on location in Florida.
Distant Drums is wildly historically inaccurate, received mixed reviews upon release, and was a moderate financial success. It is notable for being the source of the Wilhelm scream sound effect, which is believed to have been voiced by cast member Sheb Wooley and is used when a supporting character is attacked by an alligator.[2]
During the Second Seminole War in 1840, US Army General Zachary Taylor sends naval Lieutenant Tufts and scout Monk to a remote Florida island home, where the reclusive Captain Quincy Wyatt lives with his 5-year-old son. The soldiers' mission is to destroy a remote "old Spanish fort" being used as a base for Spanish gunrunners aiding the Seminoles, and they convince the reluctant Wyatt to lead the small strike force as Taylor had requested.
Wyatt and his men succeed in destroying the fort (the historic Castillo de San Marcos, which was not harmed during filming), but not before rescuing a group of prisoners who were being held there. One of them, Judy Beckett, develops a romantic attraction to Capt. Wyatt as they flee from a large group of pursuing Seminoles through the Everglades. The journey is difficult, and several of the troops are killed, including one who is attacked by an alligator and dragged under water. Wyatt leads the survivors to his remote homestead, where he is shocked to discover that his home has been burned and his son is missing. Meanwhile, the pursuing Seminoles arrive nearby, and Wyatt challenges their chief, Ocala, to single combat. Wyatt kills him in an underwater fight and the Seminoles flee. Soon after, he discovers that his son had been taken to safety before his home had been attacked and they are reunited.
The Everglades is a natural region of flooded grasslands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee. Water leaving the lake in the wet season forms a slow-moving river 60 miles (97 km) wide and over 100 miles (160 km) long, flowing southward across a limestone shelf to Florida Bay at the southern end of the state. The Everglades experiences a wide range of weather patterns, from frequent flooding in the wet season to drought in the dry season. Throughout the 20th century, the Everglades suffered significant loss of habitat and environmental degradation.
The Seminole Wars were a series of three military conflicts between the United States and the Seminoles that took place in Florida between about 1816 and 1858. The Seminoles are a Native American nation which coalesced in northern Florida during the early 1700s, when the territory was still a Spanish colonial possession. Tensions grew between the Seminoles and settlers in the newly independent United States in the early 1800s, mainly because enslaved people regularly fled from Georgia into Spanish Florida, prompting slaveowners to conduct slave raids across the border. A series of cross-border skirmishes escalated into the First Seminole War in 1817, when General Andrew Jackson led an incursion into the territory over Spanish objections. Jackson's forces destroyed several Seminole and Black Seminole towns and briefly occupied Pensacola before withdrawing in 1818. The U.S. and Spain soon negotiated the transfer of the territory with the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819.
The Wilhelm scream is a stock sound effect that has been used in many films and TV series, beginning in 1951 with the film Distant Drums. The scream is usually used when someone is shot, falls from a great height, or is thrown from an explosion. The sound is named after Private Wilhelm, a character in The Charge at Feather River, a 1953 Western in which the character gets shot in the thigh with an arrow. This was its first use following its inclusion in the Warner Bros. stock sound library, although The Charge at Feather River was the third film to use the effect. The scream is believed to be voiced by actor Sheb Wooley. It was featured in all of the original Star Wars films.
Osceola, named Billy Powell at birth in Alabama, became an influential leader of the Seminole people in Florida. His mother was Muscogee, and his great-grandfather was a Scotsman, James McQueen. He was reared by his mother in the Creek (Muscogee) tradition. When he was a child, they migrated to Florida with other Red Stick refugees, led by a relative, Peter McQueen, after their group's defeat in 1814 in the Creek Wars. There they became part of what was known as the Seminole people.
Shelby Fredrick "Sheb" Wooley was an American singer, songwriter and actor. He recorded a series of novelty songs including the 1958 hit rock and roll comedy single "The Purple People Eater" and under the name Ben Colder the country hit "Almost Persuaded No. 2". As an actor, he portrayed Cletus Summers, the principal of Hickory High School and assistant coach in the 1986 film Hoosiers; Ben Miller, brother of Frank Miller in the film High Noon; Travis Cobb in The Outlaw Josey Wales, and also had a co-starring role as scout Pete Nolan in the television series Rawhide. Wooley is also credited as the voice actor who provided the Wilhelm scream and all of the other stock sound effects for Thomas J. Valentino's Major record label during the 1940s.
The Second Seminole War, also known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between the United States and groups of people collectively known as Seminoles, consisting of American Indians and Black Indians. It was part of a series of conflicts called the Seminole Wars. The Second Seminole War, often referred to as the Seminole War, is regarded as "the longest and most costly of the Indian conflicts of the United States". After the Treaty of Payne's Landing in 1832 that called for the Seminole's removal from Florida, tensions rose until fierce hostilities occurred in the Dade battle in 1835. This conflict started the war. The Seminoles and the U.S. forces engaged in mostly small engagements for more than six years. By 1842, only a few hundred native peoples remained in Florida. Although no peace treaty was ever signed, the war was declared over on August 14, 1842.
Thomas Brown was an American politician who served as Florida's second Governor from 1849 to 1853. He is buried at the Old City Cemetery in Tallahassee.
The Castillo de San Marcos is the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States; it is located on the western shore of Matanzas Bay in the city of St. Augustine, Florida.
The Battle of Lake Okeechobee was one of the major battles of the Second Seminole War. It was fought between 800 troops of the 1st, 4th, and 6th Infantry Regiments and 132 Missouri Volunteers, and between 380 and 480 Seminoles led by Billy Bowlegs, Abiaca, and Halpatter Tustenuggee (Alligator) on 25 December 1837. Halpatter Tustenuggee had played a major role in the Dade Battle two years earlier. The Seminole warriors were resisting forced relocation to a reservation in Oklahoma. Though both the Seminoles and Taylor's troops emerged from the battle claiming victory, Taylor was promoted to the rank of brigadier general as a result, and his nickname of "Old Rough and Ready" came mostly due to this battle.
John Richard Webb was an American film, television and radio actor.
Holata Micco was an important leader of the Seminoles in Florida during the Second Seminole War and was the remaining Seminole's most prominent chief during the Third Seminole War, when he led the Seminoles' last major resistance against the United States government. With the possibilities of military victory dwindling, he finally agreed to relocate with his people to Indian Territory in 1858. As part of the settlement he was paid $6,500 plus $1,000 each for the subchiefs and $100 each for the women and children who went with him. He is buried in Hughes County, Oklahoma.
The Charge at Feather River is a 1953 American Western film directed by Gordon Douglas. It was originally released in 3D with many arrows, lances, and other weapons flying directly at the audience in several scenes.
The term Florida Western is used to describe a small number of films and literary works set in the 19th century, particularly around the time of the Second Seminole War. Not a significant number of these films have been made, as most Hollywood and other genre Westerns are usually located in other regions of the United States, particularly the former frontier territories of "the West".
The Dade battle was an 1835 military defeat for the United States Army. The U.S. was attempting to force the Seminoles to move away from their land in Florida and relocate to Indian Territory. Amidst a war between the Government of the United States and the Seminole two U.S. Army companies numbering 103 men under the command of Major Francis L. Dade were ambushed by approximately 180 Seminole warriors as they marched from Fort Brooke on Tampa Bay to reinforce Fort King in Ocala. Only three U.S. soldiers survived the attack, and one died of his wounds the following day.
A national push for expansion and progress toward the latter part of the 19th century stimulated interest in draining the Everglades, a region of tropical wetlands in southern Florida, for agricultural use. According to historians, "From the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, the United States went through a period in which wetland removal was not questioned. Indeed, it was considered the proper thing to do."
Seminole is a 1953 American Western film directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Rock Hudson, Barbara Hale, Anthony Quinn and Richard Carlson. Much of the film was shot in the Everglades National Park, Florida. The film depicts the Second Seminole War (1835-1842).
Everglades Holiday Park is an attraction park situated on 29 acres of wetlands in the Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The park is located on the western end of Griffin Road, off U.S. 27. Everglades Holiday Park is not affiliated with Everglades National Park.
Ross William Heilman, better known as Ross Kananga, was a crocodile farm owner and stunt man, best known for his appearance in the 1973 James Bond movie Live and Let Die.
Fort Gardiner was a stockaded fortification with two blockhouses that was built in 1837 by the United States Army. It was one of the military outposts created during the Second Seminole War to assist Colonel Zachary Taylor's troops to capture Seminole Indians and their allies in the central part of the Florida Territory that were resisting forced removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River per the Indian Removal Act.
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