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Drums Along the Mohawk More at IMDbPro »

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Drums Along The Mohawk (John Ford, 1939) ***1/2, 9 June 2006

Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta

Ford made three great films in this one year, the others being the more quoted YOUNG MR. LINCOLN (1939) and STAGECOACH (1939). For this reason, this one has often been overlooked: patchy but frequently splendid, it's still an important achievement - a painstakingly realized production bearing some of the director's most characteristic traits.

Set in the period of the American Revolution, it's not strictly a Western but the film features a number of skirmishes between the settlers and the Indians - flanked by a band of renegades led by a one-eyed John Carradine in another memorable villainous turn for Ford (after having played the sadistic prison warden in an earlier historical piece, THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND [1936]). His death occurs off-screen, but it's subtly suggested by a wonderful bit of business towards the end - involving an Indian who's been converted to Christianity!

The cast, as always, is peppered with familiar Fordian faces - most notably Arthur Shields as a fervently patriotic priest! Leads Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda emerge as the perfect embodiments of the Spirit of America - idealistic, devoted and brave. Typically Fordian, i.e. corny, comic relief is provided by Edna May Oliver and Ward Bond - but, then, the former's fine portrayal of the indomitable frontierswoman par excellence was justly nominated for an Academy Award!

The film's color cinematography (which also duly received an Oscar citation) is simply gorgeous, particularly when Ford's camera - this was his first in the process - is directed at the sweeping landscape.

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