The Last of the Mohicans (1920)

The Last of the Mohicans (1920)

Directed by Maurice Tourneur and Clarence Brown

Adaptation by Robert Dillon, based on the novel by James Fennimore Cooper

Runtime: 1 hr, 13 min

What is now the oldest film that I have seen is not even the oldest film adaptation of James Fennimore Cooper’s famed novel The Last of the Mohicans, a book I unfortunately have not read.  The first version dates back to 1911, predating the mass film migration to southern California; the best known version was made in 1992 and starred Daniel Day-Lewis, and there are least ten others in multiple languages.  However, the version under consideration today is the only adaptation preserved in the National Film Registry (inducted in 1995).

In the film, set during the French and Indian War, the last remaining member of the Mohican tribe, Uncas (Alan Roscoe), is sent to Fort Edward to warn of an impending attack on Fort William Henry, where Colonel Munro (James Gordon).  The two Munro girls, Cora (Barbara Bedford) and Alice (Lillian Hall), are told to follow an Indian guide named Magua (Wallace Beery) to the fort, but Magua is pure evil and wants to take Cora as his woman, resulting in the party’s capture on the way.  It’s all downhill from there.

And when I say downhill, I mean it.  The Last of the Mohicans is the sort of film in which the problems for the main characters never cease.  The moment that one obstacle has been overcome, another pops up right in its place, giving the characters (and the audience) little time to catch a breath and reflect on events.  Not long after Uncas and company rescue the Munro party from Magua’s thugs on the way to Fort William Henry, the combined French and Huron forces begin burning the fort to the ground and, contrary to the terms of surrender, begin attacking the women and children.

Speaking of attacking the women and children, and more than a little unfortunately, the film and the story in general is quite the product of its time.  It goes beyond that the vast majority of the Native American characters are portrayed at best as savage and at worst as pure evil (take the one Huron who seems to be licking his lips at a defenseless mother with her baby).  As was the norm, the Native American characters are played by white men.  The whole “different time” thing softens the blow somewhat, but even so, it’s hard to stomach Wallace Beery’s get-up as Magua.  If I didn’t know any better I’d think he was in blackface.

Now that the obvious unpleasantness is out of the way, we can discuss the film’s own merits and demerits.  On the positive side, there are some fine performances alongside the uncomfortable camp.  Barbara Bedford imbues Cora with a great deal of strength and resolve, appearing appropriately stoic when events take a turn for the worse.  That, and she can sell insanely standing at a cliff’s edge.  Lillian Hall, meanwhile, exudes a girlish charm combined with intense fear at the impending events, and their relationship, based on that contrast, shines through.

How much directors Maurice Tourneur and Clarence Brown had to do with those performances is unclear, but they certainly had a hand in staging the film’s numerous action sequences.  These scenes, especially the attack on Fort William Henry, provide the other highlights of The Last of the Mohicans.  The staging captures the full chaos of the attack, with hundreds running about in no particular direction.  Yet the entire time, it is easy to tell what is literally happening on screen; Tourneur and Brown never let the chaos extend past the mental level.

Well, I take that back.  While at any given moment the action is easy to comprehend, taken as a whole, the movie’s plotline is a bit hard to follow.  Part of the problem is that not enough time is given to establish the characters at the beginning.  During the early scenes I spent most of my time trying to figure out which character was which.  This holds true most with the British generals; it took forever for me to distinguish Captain Randolph (George Hackathorne) from General Webb (Sydney Deane).  Must be those god-forsaken wigs.

This confusion makes The Last of the Mohicans a frustrating watch for the first half, but the second half, in which Magua’s scheming and Uncas heroics come to head, comes about with great clarity.  The shots get longer, the actors more meditative.  And even though the conflict gets reduced to the fate of Cora and Alice, somehow the stakes feel grander than when the British war prospects were at stake.  This is where Bedford and Hall’s performances pay off, as they lend their choices down the road significant gravitas.

Had it not been for strength of Alice and Cora, and the resulting strong ending sequence, I probably would have judged The Last of the Mohicans a movie worth passing over.  But when those performances and the action scenes are factored in, it becomes a film worth a quick look.  It’s available on Google Video, so it’s not that hard to track down.  I certainly can’t guarantee that one would enjoy the film—I’m not even sure if I’d want to see it again or not.  But, hey, it was deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.  That has to count for something, right?