The Last of the Mohicans (1920 American film)
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The Last of the Mohicans (1920 American film)
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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1995.
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The Last of the Mohicans is a 1920 American silent adventure drama film written by Robert A. Dillon, adapted from James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel of the same name. Clarence Brown and Maurice Tourneur co-directed the film. The adventure film stars Wallace Beery, Barbara Bedford, Lillian Hall, Alan Roscoe and Boris Karloff in one of his earliest silent film roles (playing an Indian brave).
Why It Rocks
- Like some of Tourneur's previous films that are adaptations, it's a thrilling period spectacle aimed at younger viewers, but with enough romance and intrigue to interest adults as well. James Fenimore Cooper's novel was set during the French and Indian War, loosely based on military leader Captain Robert Rogers, and dealt with the defeat of British troops at Fort William Henry and their retreat to Fort Ann, told from the point of view of two daughters of a British colonel and the Mohicans who are guarding them. While the details of the French and Indian War were difficult for most audiences to comprehend, (Canada viewed the French and the British battling each other for control of Lakes Champion and George, with both sides seeking confusing alliances from local Indians) Tourneur, nonetheless, saw The Last of the Mohicans in terms of a Robert Louis Stevenson novel, filled with marauding villains and the few bulwarks who stood against them. The writers didn't care that much about which Indian tribes followed which side in the war: there were just “good” Indians who didn’t kill whites and “bad” Indians who wore war paint and raped and pillaged the innocent. Like in the novel, there are heroic and villainous characters on both sides of the racial divide.
- Tourneur in particular was interested in the idea of a forbidden love affair between a white woman and an Indian man. While he was slightly unsure about the benefits or even the possibility of such a union in colonial society, he showcased clear sexual attraction between Cora Munro, daughter of a British colonel, and Uncas, son of a Mohican chief. The illicit nature of their relationship is exaggerated, without indicating that Cora had an Indian mother, like Cooper did in the novel.
- It should also be noted that Cora's unattached in the novel, but in the 1920 film she's unhappily paired with Captain Randolph, a coward invented for the film.
- For the younger viewers, the film's given some of the most thrilling action of the period—fast-paced, brutal, and filled with spectacular imagery. Nearly a quarter of the film is given over to the massacre of women and children fleeing Fort William Henry. It's a superbly constructed sequence that starts with carefully composed wide shots of troops marching in parade and gradually descends into the madness of mob hysteria. Hundreds of extras fill out every corner of the frame. At one point a savage, knife clenched in his teeth, advances on a helpless mother and her newborn baby. He’s filmed in a shocking close-up, heading straight into the lens. The director and his crew paid surprisingly great attention to detail, aside from a couple factors.
- It's the first feature-length adaptation of Cooper's novel, and its cinematography is beautifully shot. The images are beautifully framed, crisply photographed, and gracefully edited. While a couple of short films arrived as early as 1911,and others followed in later years, from Hollywood and elsewhere, this silent film still holds up in a way for pure visual storytelling and a memorably filmed climax.
- Depth was created through rain and fog effects, and by filming in the mornings and afternoons rather than during the flat light of midday. The director even considered improvising a dolly by placing the camera on a perambulator fastened to an automobile axe.
- Generally smart acting for most of the performers
- Magua was an important role for Wallace Beery, who plays the villain with an exuberance and insolence that were trademarks of his screen persona.
- Barbara Bedford and Lillian Hall as Cora and Alice Munro, respectively, plus James Gordon as Colonel Munro and Nelson McDowell in the small role of a preacher who joins the wagon train of refugees.
Bad Qualities
- While the massacre in Fort William Henry is meant to be based on historical fact, the climax is shot at Big Bear Lake, California, instead of the shores of Lake George, New York
- There's not too much ethnic authenticity, considering the most dramatic Indian character is played by a highly un-Indian-like actor covered in makeup.
- While Magua's evil nature is balanced out by the portrayal of Uncas as a good and true Mohican brave, it's also a stereotype - the noble savage - with not to much thought behind it.