Deed of Daring-Do

It's a very short (less than three minutes!) and silent movie about a little boy that is in an old far-west town and dreams for a few moments that he's a cowboy himself. And that's all because of a beautiful lady…

It's a color film but because of the silence and the type of cinematography it made me remind the silent movies of the early 20's.

The setting/scenario is very simple (it even has an amateur touch, like all movie anyway…) but it has all the elements which characterize an old west town: the saloon, carts, dusty roads…

Well, there isn't too much to say about it because it has just three minutes!

This was the first of three "home movies" included in the bonus features on the special edition DVD release of "The Missing" (2003). Each of the short films is western-themed, to tie-in with director Ron Howard's "first" western feature. They are certainly not the only home-movies Mr. Howard made, although currently presented as such. The year of production is given as 1969. At that time, Howard had finished "The Andy Griffith Show" a teenager and accepted stints on westerns like "Gunsmoke", while younger brother Clint Howard was the new TV kid in the family in the shorter-lived "Gentle Ben" co-starring their dad, Rance Howard.

"Deed of Daring-Do" is a silent short starring young brother Clint. He wanders onto a "western" studio backlot and imagines himself in a cowboy movie. The fantasy swings when Ronny's girlfriend Cheryl Alley appears, dressed in western attire. Cheryl gives Clint a comely wink, which invites an appearance from a dastardly rival, played by father Rance. After the inevitable shoot-out, it appears Clint has won the girl, or has he… This is a competent effort, with Ronny's access to resources obviously coming in handy. According to the young filmmaker, "Deed of Daring-Do" won the Howard brothers $100 in a Kodak-sponsored contest.

***** Deed of Daring-Do (1969) Ron Howard ~ Clint Howard, Rance Howard, Cheryl Alley

It is not clear whether Ron Howard had been told about a 1907 silent film, 'Terrible Ted', which had an almost identical premise. The reviewer for 'The Moving Picture World' in 1907 described it in some detail; it was, after all, a short 792-foot one-reeler. (probably about eight or nine minutes, depending on the projector). Seemingly, just the idea of a kid doing all this gunfighting and Indian killing-it was a pretty violent film, though bloodless-was automatically funny to the reviewer: "The situations are extremely funny, as you may imagine-a boy of twelve years the hero of such hair-raising episodes."

The ad from Biograph subtitled Terrible Ted as "A Youthful Victim of Dime Novel-itis emulating Roosevelt in the Wild and Woolly West".

I don't know how much input Howard got on this-after all, he didn't spell 'Derring-do' correctly.