Customer Reviews

Mohawk

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MOHAWK is a delightfully bad movie that succeeds despite itself. Ostensibly about a 18th century frontier painter (Scott Brady), it's really nothing more than an innocent cheesecake (and beefcake) movie saddled to a western plot.
Our hero Brady is away from the post, painting barmaid Greta's (Allison Hayes) picture when his Boston fiancée, Cynthia (Lori Nelson), arrives. Beautiful Mohawk princess (daughter of chief Ted de Corsia) Onida (Rita Gam) isn't on scene yet, but she arrives soon enough to take her place in the three-sided tug-of-war for the attention of our randy paint pusher.
Things are ducky between the white settlers and the Iroquois (There's land enough for everybody, Chief Ted says at one point), save for the bitter machinations of landowner Butler (John Hoyt) and hawkish Tuscarora warrior Rokhawah (Neville Brand.)
With that set-up, it should come as no surprise that most of act three takes place at the besieged white settlement. Connoisseurs of bad westerns should enjoy the dialogue in MOHAWK, too. There's the obligatory mule skinner observation - "When a woman puts her warpaint on she's more dangerous than any injun!" This pleasant, pseudo-Indian speak exchange between the nasty Rokhawah and good Chief Ted's son - "Your tongue is too long!" "Your knife will not shorten it!" Or this pungent observation by, I believe, the warrior Rokhawah - "He who fills his mouth with big words ends by eating dirt!" They don't write them like that anymore. MOHAWK even has a song plunked down in the middle of it - "Love Plays the Strings of My Banjo."
If that's not enough, MOHAWK has war dances that owe quite a bit more to Merce Cunningham than ethnographic research. There are scoundrels in broadcloth and loincloth, glamorously beautiful women, Scott Brady clocking Neville Brand a time or two, an entertaining, movie ending battle scene. What more could you ask for?
The print, in glorious color, seems to have been taken from a decent master. There are some instances of color flutter, but nothing drastic. The disk also contains interesting text biographies of the stars and excerpts, some uncomplimentary, from reviews of the movie. All in all, a discount disk worth a western fan's attention.

I actually made it through the movie, so shame on me for not having something better to do for over 90 minutes. This is the 3rd DVD title I've watched from Alpha and the quality is really lame. I don't expect perfection on movies from the 50's and earlier, but, flutter, colors going in and out and contrast changing in the middle of scenes is pretty bad. The copies I've watched look worse than what one would find on regular TV.

This is a rather interesting movie in that it uses a lot of distant scenic and action shots from John Ford's Drums Along The Mohawk. This is most noticeable, because all of a sudden while viewing the film, the production values are suddenly increased and the cinematography becomes almost ravishing instead of run of the mill that the "new" portions of the film just can't match.
As an aside, I remember seeing Drums Along The Mohawk twice when I was a kid in the 1940s in a small town where I grew up and it was in black and white; only when I saw it on VHS in the 1980s did I see the true Technicolor format. And then I was knocked out again when I saw portions of it appear in Mohawk, a film I missed at the theatres and only caught on DVD about a year ago.

Does anyone know of any other films that utilized parts of older films as part of their format to save on production costs? I'd like to hear from anyone on this. I know this happens, especially in World War II films with documentary battle footage, but haven't noticed the use of regular production footage in newer movies, unless they referred to the earlier film as a link in a series.

The Alpha edition is probably as good as any. The print is fairly good, but with some color fluctuations and minor print damage. This only seems to be avaiable in a full screen edition. It's complete as far as I can tell.

This is very poor for Scott Brady. He was a better actor than this. I like his B westerns but cah do without this one.

As Ron Wood mentionned in it's review, most action sequences in MOHAWK comme from John Ford's DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK. This 1939 film provided stock shots for many other movies. In 1944, one shot of Mohawk warriors setting Fonda's place afire in DRUMS was used in BUFFALO BILL. Battle scenes around the fort were then used in MOHAWK. Almost the same scenes were used again in the pilot episode of the DANIEL BOONE TV series starring Fess Parker in the mid-60s.

As far as stock shots are concerned, BUFFALO BILL seems to be the absolute winner, at least in the western genre. Stock shots of the battle scene (War Bonnet Creek) were used by Fox in numerous productions. PONY SOLDIER with Tyrone Power (begining of the movie). SIEGE AT FEATHER RIVER (end of the movie, which was produced by Panoramic which provided FOX with B pictures). THE TIME TUNNEL TV series (Episode : Little Big Horn) also used the battle to pass as Custer's famous last stand.
Another depiction of that battle, from THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON starring Errol Flynn, was used in BUGLES IN THE AFTERNOON starring Ray Milland. Though THEY DIED was black and white, and BUGLES Technicolor, the stock shot did fit because it was being watch through binoculars by Ray Milland and modified from black and white to sepia.

If anyone knows of other stock shots in westerns, I'd be glad to read about that.

Scott Brady and Rita Gam are not especially believable as a colonial era artist and his native American love interest, but the unusual time period, and energy of the production make "Mowhawk" fun. Evil white men try to incite the Indians to war, while the high-integrity artist works to maintain peace as he does portraits of various characters.