The Pathfinder

"The Pathfinder" is a film based on the James Fenimore Cooper novel. A different famous novel is his "Last of the Mohicans"....both of which have been made into films many times...partly, I am sure, due to the stories being in the public domain. However, like too many stories, the Hollywood versions often play fast and loose with the plots and little of the original ends up in the film. Such is the case with this movie. It is good...but not a lot like the original source material. Just once I'd love to see a version where Pathfinder is referred to by his real name, Natty Bumppo!

In this version, George Montgomery plays Pathfinder and his best friend, Chingachgook, is played by Jay Silverheels (of "The Lone Ranger" fame). The film must have been seen as a prestige picture, as uncharacteristic of 1950s westerns and action films, it's in vivid color...especially since it was from Columbia Pictures...a studio which at the time was famous more for making cheap B-westerns. In many ways, the film plays like a western...set in the mid-west/eastern United States in the 1750s-60s...before the even was a United States.

So is the film any good? Yes. The acting is very good and the production values likewise. A good action/adventure film that held my interest througout. Had they stuck to the original story, no doubt I would have rated it a bit higher.

By the way, this is not a serious complaint, but when the British attacked the French with cannon fire, you see cannonballs hit and large groups of men all around it falling to the ground, dead. Well, in the 1700s, cannonballs did NOT explode and send shrapnel everywhere...this was developed around 1800. Instead, the cannonball would bash into people and kill them that way...far less effective and totally unlike the deaths in the film. This is the sort of thing you learn when you are a history teacher like I used to be.

Bloodless battle scenes are interspersed with fairly well-written dialogue scenes in this inexpensive (but in good 50's color) tale of Indians, French and English conflict. George Montgomery and Jay Silverheels ("Tonto") are dashing, and the first Helena Carter is pretty and plucky. Like a TV dinner served in a tin tray, this film is pure "comfort". I haven't read the book, but I'd bet that the plot is pretty close except for the love story (in Cooper, romantic incidents are usually mental but never become physical). If you know Cooper better than I do (I've only read "Mohicans"), please add a comment.

George Montgomery is well cast as Natty Bumpo in this handsome version of James Fennimore Cooper's novel. He's off on a spying mission on French forces along with Helena Carter. Jay Silverheels is Chingachgook, Chief Yowlachie --sometimes known as Daniel Simmons, back in the day when he was an opera singer -- and Rodd Redwing make up the Amerindian contingent of the actors, although they all derived from tribes far afield from the Algonquins.

There's nothing out of the ordinary in this Sam Katzman production when it comes to scripting or acting, but Henry Freulich's Technicolor camerawork is certainly well done, showing off the French blues that all the French characters wear.

George Montgomery stars in a minor western matinée feature that is a takeoff of "The Last of the Mohicans". Here, the plot angle has the Pathfinder and his Indian sidekick on a mission to divine French plans for an attack on the U.S. colonies in the Great Lakes region. The French have enlisted hostile Mingo Indians to enlist them in ousting the colonists during the French and Indian War. The two heroes path is fraught with danger as they trek through the wilderness with a pretty French interpreter who supplies the romantic interest for the Pathfinder. The technicolor is good and in spite of a thin story line, the film is worth watching for the nostalgia the fine supporting cast offers.

I suppose all films adapted from Fenimore Cooper can be considered as westerns.... They are, actually, and this one is very pleasant, despite the Sam Katzman's production. Sidney Salkwow was directing and I suppose that compensated the Katzman's disability to provide enough budget and care in a costume and action movie, which gives the audiences the feeling to be taken as dumb people. Here, I did not have this feeling, or maaybe a bit less than in other Sam Katzman's productions. It is colorful, good paced, very pleasant to enjoy. Yes, I don't dislike this little film. Despite Sam Katzman's presence as the producer. Very rare indeed.