Last of the Mohicans

Many people -especially I suspect younger ones -will come to this movie after the lavish Michael Mann version of the book that came out in the early nineties and starred Daniel Day -Lewis .They may find this more modest 1936 black and white picture a bit quaint by contrast but for my money it is an exciting and crisply made movie in its own right.
Randolph Scott stars as Hawkeye ,who escorts the stiff but gallant British officer Duncan Heyward and the two daughters of the regimental colonel ,Alice and Cora ,through the woods to Fort William Henry.They are accompanied by Chingachgook and his son Uncas ,sole surviving members of the Mohican tribe ,and are harried constantly by Magwa ,avicuous and depraved Huron who is allied with the French against the British.
On making it to the Fort it is promptly besieged by the Franco-Huron army and the women captured .Once again the heroes must track them down and rescue them from the clutches of the Huron.

The performances are solid -Scott is a rugged hero and Wilcoxon plays Heyward on the just the right note of stiff upper lip gallantry while Bruce Cabot is a menacing and suitably thuggish villain
Shot in the High Sierras by the cinematographer Robert Planck the movie looks good and moves crisply with some lively scenes of siege and woodland combat

The script intelligently anticipates the war of Independence -a little over a decade away -by emphasising the desire of the "colonials"for self determination in miltary matters .

The casting of white actors as Naative Americans makes for uneasy viewing in patches but that is the only real drawback in a lively movie

That's the fate awaiting Cora and Alice Munro (Binnie Barners and Heather Angel) if they're not rescued by Hawkeye (Randolph Scott) and Major Duncan Heywood (Henry Wilcoxin) first. This is a very enjoyable adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's classic about the French and Indian War and the clashes between colonials and British foreshadowing the Revolution to come. British Duncan's stiff regulations and refusal to understand his environment contrast with American Hawkeye's common sense approach to life and survival. Yet both must work together if the French and the Huron are to be staved off and the women brought safely to shelter at Fort William Henry. Wilcoxin is a much better actor than Scott, so the movie is easily his. While his politics are wrong by colonial standards, he nevertheless is brave, performing more acts of courage than Scott's Hawkeye, actually. My other favorite actors are the girls' father Colonel Munro and the French marquise and his aide. The aide especially makes the most of a rather small part, as when he opens a dispatch with a great flourish. Bruce Cabot plays Magua, the evil Mohawk Indian--he's a veteran of "King Kong" as is composer Max Steiner, who "borrows" some of his own score from that 1933 movie for a thrilling canoe chase. Downside: Sorry to say that I haven't read the novel, so I can't be sure, but it seems to me that the Mohicans themselves don't get much play in this version. Uncas is lovesick, period, for Alice, while Chingachcook generally scowls and makes a comment about beavers or some such. Enlist some of your friends to watch this fast-paced adventure classic with you sometime soon--you'll be glad you did.

The Last Of The Mohicans [1936]
I missed this item on Laserdisc as it was deleted when I went to order it. However, I viewed with interest the DVD Special Edition from a distributor I had not heard of before. I ordered and although it is not bad the quality is far below what i would have expected which is why I would give it a low rating. As a film it is fine but then I am biased as I like Randolph Scott films. By all means buy it if Scott and esterns from the 1930s are your bag but don't expect top quality like a Warner Bros restoration. This brings me to price which is too high under the circumstances when a topnotch Warner or Fox restoration can often be had for under US$10 if one searches properly.