Mohawk (1956)

Excellent, a Must See

Don't listen to the negative reviews

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It's sad to see a couple of fine players like Rita Gam and Ted de Corsia caught up in this tawdry excuse for a recap of stock footage from John Ford's infinitely superior "Drums Along the Mohawk" (1939). They struggle doggedly with ridiculous dialogue and clichéd characterizations — to disappointingly little avail. Vera Vague is more at ease with this sort of tosh, as is that staple heavy of the "B" western, Neville Brand. But the normally reliable John Hoyt has the grace to look discomfited. Scott Brady of course couldn't care less, whilst Lori Nelson is stuck with that grating, squawky voice. It says much in fact for the general quality of the acting when I record that the most convincing portrayal comes from Allison Hayes!Production credits are so incompetent that little attempt is made to match or integrate Ford's stock shots with the "new" material. The Neumann/Struss footage is so uniformly lousy that one wonders whatever induced Fox to be a party to such a miscarriage. Why not simply re-issue the Ford film and be done with all this tatty, talentless and impoverished pretense?OTHER VIEWS: At least ten or fifteen minutes of superlative action from "Drums Along the Mohawk" is ineptly married to a risible hodge- podge of cigar-store-Indian hokum about a pioneer painter and a svelte Indian maid. A plot clearly drawn from Broken Arrow has been gutted to supply the framework for Boys Own Paper characters mouthing dialogue from True Romances. Most of the players try mighty hard to give the stupidities of the script some sort of dignity. But the very cheapness of the production with its ill-matching interpolations, its tatty sets and costumes, its featurelessly flat, dull-colored photography, its toes-on-the-mark compositions, overwhelms all well-meant efforts in the end. — JHR writing as Charles Freeman.You could make a wonderfully dreadful little Movie Pak out of Mohawk. Twenty or thirty minutes of the choicest clichés and hammiest acting in those gloriously pokey sets. Not forgetting the songs, those inappropriately rousing choruses over the front and extended end titles. — JHR writing as George Addison.

In an attempt to limit costs, most of the location shots are lifted from the outstanding John Ford movie "Drums Along The Mohawk" The characters are kind of off-the-wall, with the hero, Scott Brady, a sensitive painter, rather than a gunslinger. He is surrounded by man-hungry buxom babes, but he has eyes mainly for unlikely Indian Rita Gam. The rest of her people look fearsome, particularly Neville Brand and Ted DeCorsia, more familiar as snarling gangsters An entertaining time filler, although unconvincing as a Western adventure. Far more useful to seek out the real thing, "Drums Along The Mohawk", from 1939 (a classic year for Hollywood), which is one of Ford's classics, with strong performances from Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert, with a true feel for the era, to which this one doesn't come close

This hokum film set during pre-Revolutionary War deals with a painter named Jonathan Adams (Scott Brady), tangling with diverse dames as he paints wonderful outdoor scenes and beautiful women . He is away from Boston so long that his fiancée , Cynthia Stanhope (Lori Nelson), along with her Aunt Agatha (Barbara Allen), newly arrive from the east to Fort Alden ( 1778, Otsego County, Cherry Valley, the Fort existed and was destroyed in French and Indian War) seeking him . Cynthia finds him juggling the gorgeous Greta Jones (Allison Hayes), a shopkeeper's (Rhys Williams) daughter, as a model. Mohawk Chief Kowanen (Ted De Corsia) holds his tribe in check but rebel warrior Rokhawah (Neville Brand) wishes into raiding the fort for guns . Onida, Kowanen's daughter (Rita Gam), agrees to let the raiders into the fort after sundown and finds herself caught in Adams' hut after the attackers getaway . Later on , the artist Adams and Onida fall in love but he is taken prisoner . Meanwhile , Butler (John Hoyt), an Indian hater , is seeking to provoke a war so that he might get rule of the whole Mohawk valley . Then he murders Kowanen's son, Keoga, and this causes the chief into declaring war against white men . After that, the courageous Adams trying to thwart Iroquois uprising .This peculiar B frontier western in 1950-style contains adventure , intrigue , fights and an inter-racial love story . It's a quickie with lack luster and low budget but it manages to be at least an enjoyable adventures movie because contains action, sensational outdoors and outlandish thrills situations abound . The story is neither realistic nor ambitious, but sympathetic with good scenarios, costumes and landscapes . It's made on the ideas and leftover from previous movie the very superior ¨Drums along the Mohawk¨ by John Ford with Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert . The film displays a haunting and rich cinematography capturing flavor of colonial life by Karl Struss, Neumann's usual . The motion picture produced by Edward Alperson is finely directed by Kurt Neumann (The fly, Cronos, She-Devil, Tarzan and the leopard woman). This vigorous picture with some humor unintentionally interwoven obtained limited successful but results to be enough agreeable. It's a good stuff for young people and exotic adventures lovers who enjoy enormously with the extraordinary dangers on the luxurious landscapes and marvelous Technicolor photography.

That's so you can tell the two tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy apart in this colonial travesty. And that line of explanation is actually in the film Mohawk.The Tuscaroras are currently house guests of the Mohawks having moved up from the south do to white settlement on their hunting grounds. They've got an understandable attitude as expressed by their chief Neville Brand who wants war with the whites and the Mohawks as allies. But the Mohawk Chief Ted DeCorsia hasn't had any problems with them and he's reluctant to join.But DeCorsia might not have a choice because a man named Butler played by John Hoyt wants to start a nice little war. It seems as though his family once was the only white folks in the whole Mohawk Valley and he wants it that way again. He stirs up the Indians by first giving them weapons and then shooting Tommy Cook who is DeCorsia's son. That way when everybody kills everybody off, this dill-weed will have the whole valley to himself once again.Our hero in this piece is a painter, Scott Brady who is romancing three different women of differing hair color, probably deliberate cast that way by the producer. There's his blond fiancé from Boston Lori Nelson, the blacksmith Rhys Williams's daughter Allison Hayes, and a fiery brunette Indian princess Rita Gam. If you care to see the film, you'll find out who he winds up with.By the way John Hoyt's character is not in any way the same as Walter Butler who was a Tory in the American Revolution and responsible for leading the Indians in the famous Cherry Valley Massacre. He was one of the jury in The Devil and Daniel Webster and he's also portrayed in D.W. Griffith's film, Revolution by Lionel Barrymore. I thought when I heard Hoyt's name in the film that I would see some of that story in this film, but it was a tease.The only thing really to recommend Mohawk is a nicely staged battle scene when the Indians attack the stockade. The same one used by John Ford for Drums Along the Mohawk, an infinitely better film.The cast can barely keep straight faces throughout this film. When Mohawk wrapped they should have burned the film and roasted a turkey over it in the true spirit of Thanksgiving.