The Last of the Mohicans (1920)
Directed by Maurice Tourneur, Clarence Brown

Film Review

The first feature length film adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's popular historical novel The Last of the Mohicans is a surprisingly brutal and pacy affair that helped to lay the foundations for the classic American western.  The most celebrated of the films that Maurice Tourneur directed as an independent film producer in the late 1910s, early 1920s, this memorable version takes Cooper's sprawling epic and compresses it into a feisty action-oriented melodrama that moves along so fast that you can barely keep up with it.  Of the many adaptations of the novel, this is easily one of the most compelling and rewarding, although it simplifies the narrative to the point that only three of the characters have any real substance.

Robert A. Dillon screenplay dispenses with most of the characters and events of Cooper's novel and focuses on its most fascinating ingredient - the romantic triangle formed by Cora, the virtuous white heroine, and two warring Indians, Magua and Uncas.  It is the contrast between the latter two characters that is the central dynamic in the film.  Uncas and Magua are pure archetypes representing the absolute best and worst in human nature.  Whereas Magua's interest in Cora and her sister Alice is nothing more than unbridled bestial lust, Uncas's attraction for Cora is intensely spiritual - living proof that true love can transcend the race barrier.  Both Magua and Uncas have their white counterparts.  Hawkeye (a major character in the original novel) has Uncas's purity and nobility but he is reduced to a minor participant in the film, as is the cowardly traitor Captain Randolph, Magua's white alter ego.

It was during the film's incredibly ambitious location shoot that Maurice Tourneur sustained an injury that prevented him from completing the filming.  His assistant Clarence Brown took over, having already assisted Tourneur on several of his earlier films, including The Hand of Peril  (1916) and The Pride of the Clan (1917).  Brown would go on to become one of Hollywood's most successful and prolific film directors, his credits including a number of Greta Garbo vehicles, such as Anna Christie (1930), and the Liz Taylor classic National Velvet (1944).  The Last of the Mohicans harbours an even bigger film legend, although you have to look very closely to spot him: the then totally unknown Boris Karloff, briefly glimpsed in an uncredited role as an Indian.

Tourneur's keen visual sense is apparent both in the film's sumptuous location photography, which subtly betrays the raw savagery lurking in the paradisiacal setting, and its full-on action sequences.  The pace of editing adds further drama and tension to the action scenes, and it is hard not to be taken aback by the sheer naked brutality of the Indians' murderous assault on a defenceless British fort.  In one shot, a Huron warrior snatches a baby from its mother and casually hurls it up into the air.  What follows is a scene straight from the Apocalypse - helpless women and children chased and slaughtered by hatchet-wielding Indians, so that the foregound is soon strewn with mangled corpses against a backdrop of smouldering devastation.

Oddly, the film has been criticised far less for its outlandish violent content than for its politically incorrect representation of Native American Indians - a fault that can be traced back to the source novel.  The nail-biting sequence near the end of the film in which Cora is driven to a cliff edge by Magua is reminiscent of a scene in D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915), in which a white woman is brutally raped by a black man.  Whilst this depiction of the Native American as a lecherous, scalp collecting savage is certainly unflattering (particularly as he is played by a heavily made-up white actor, Wallace Beery), the authentic and moving way in which the film handles Cora and Uncas's suggested love affair is quite daring for a film of this era.  In this and so many other respects, The Last of the Mohicans is a film that is years ahead of its time.

Film Synopsis

By 1757, the Seven Years' War that is ravaging the continent of Europe has reached the colonies in the Americas.   A British stronghold in New York, Fort William Henry, is threatened by French armies and their Huron Indian allies.  Uncas, the last of the Mohican warriors, is sent by his father, Great Serpent, to warn the fort's commander, Colonel Munro, of the impending danger.  When she sees Uncas for the first time, Munro's eldest daughter Cora finds herself strangely drawn to him - the attraction is noticed by her suitor Captain Randolph.  Munro immediately sends for reinforcements and has his daughters conducted to the safety of another fort by Major Heyward and an Indian runner named Magua.  On the way, the treacherous Magua abandons the women and later abducts them after they have met up with Uncas and the white hunter Hawkeye.  The latter succeed in rescuing the women and, in the struggle, Magua is left for dead.  Its munitions depleted, Fort William Henry is ready for the taking and a massacre ensues when the Hurons attack in force.   In this scene of carnage, Cora and her sister Alice are again captured by Magua and their fate is sealed.  Magua intends that Alice will be his bride, but Cora insists on taking her place.  The scene is set for a final confrontation between the evil Magua and noble Uncas, the last of the Mohicans...