diff --git a/scrapy/contrib_exp/newitem/fields.py b/scrapy/contrib_exp/newitem/fields.py
index e0a47b593..7c82c83d4 100644
--- a/scrapy/contrib_exp/newitem/fields.py
+++ b/scrapy/contrib_exp/newitem/fields.py
@@ -51,11 +51,7 @@ class MultiValuedField(Field):
 
 class BooleanField(Field):
     def to_python(self, value):
-        if value is None: return False
-        if value in (True, False): return value
-        if value in ('t', 'True', '1'): return True
-        if value in ('f', 'False', '0'): return False
-        raise FieldValueError("This value must be either True or False.")
+        return bool(value)
 
 
 ansi_date_re = re.compile(r'^\d{4}-\d{1,2}-\d{1,2}$')