DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 57, 26 July 1940, Page 20

DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK

(20th Century Fox) Like its own miraculous heroes, the Western film never dies. It has popped up in many_different guises in the past 25 years; it has had its off-seasons; but from being merely something which amused the small boys on Saturday afternoons or filled in time on the programme for the grown-ups until the "big" picture came along, the Western film has gradually evolved until to-day it is just about the best bit of merchandise which Hollywood has to offer. All the big producers and nearly all the big stars are now dealing in Cowboys-

and-Indians stuff: even Marlene Diet rich went West in " Destry Rides Again." Just recently we’ve seen two variations on the same theme in " Drums Along the Mohawk" and "Geronimo." The latter was rather the better; but since "Drums Along the Mohawk " was by far the more pretentious, I’ll pay it the courtesy of reviewing it first. Those who ask little more from their Westerns than that the war-paint should be laid on thick, the war-whoops should be blood-curdling, and that scalps should be frequently lifted, have every reason to be satisfied by "Drums Along the Mohawk." For good measure, they get their war-paint and their blood all in the finest Technicolour. But those who also ask for a story to go with it may not be so satisfied. "Drums Along the Mohawk" is just a record of how the hardy pioneers stood up to several years of Indian raids during the American War of Independence; and since, even in Technicolour, one Indian raid looks very much like another, the film tends to become monotonous. What saves it, in all but a few places, are the frills with which Director John Ford has embellished his homespun material. Claudette Colbert and Henry Fonda (who has better reason than usual for looking so worried) are adequate, but hardly more, as the young couple who go out to carve a home from the wilderness of the Mohawk Valley. Vastly more picturesque, and often more real, are many of their neighbours-Blue Back, the friendly Indian, who sends a chill up more spines than the heroine’s when he suddenly walks out of the night into her cabin; Arthur Shields as the parson whose idea of praising God is to keep his powder dry; Edna May Oliver, as the Irish widow who has a way of dealing with Redskins; Jessie Ralph, as another pioneer woman who can look after herself; and a choice assortment of backwoodsmen, renegades and soldiers. Everything runs according to schedule -and takes an hour and 40 minutes ‘to do it. The Indians close in, the fort is defended valiantly, the powder runs low, the hero breaks out to get reinforcements, is pursued, on foot, down what seems to be the entire length of the Mohawk Valley by three painted braves, and returns at the head of Washington’s troops just as the garrison is about to be put to the tomahawk. It’s Director Ford’s neat touches that count most; though his touch isn’t so sure as it was, for instance, in "Stage Coach" and "The Informer." He fumbles badly with the sequence in which the heroine’s baby is born, and he keeps the action indoors rather too much. But out in the open, with the war-drums beating, it’s good film.