Mohawk (1956) User Reviews

Action, adventure and colorful scenario during Indian wars against white man

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 27 November 2010]

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.

Slightly different point of view

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 21 March 2009]

"Mohawk" is a 1956 color film starring some darn good-looking young people, beautiful scenery, and a different point of view towards Indians. Scott Brady is an artist living in a fort that exists in peace with the Mohawk Indians, except for one rabble-rouser (John Hoyt) who grew up in the area and wants the Indians out. The script is interesting for the period, because the Brady character is constantly reminding people that the white man took land from the Indians.

The cast is populated with some gorgeous starlets: Lori Nelson, Allison Hayes, and Rita Gam. Scott Brady, who ended up becoming a character actor, actually started out as a poor man's Robert Wagner and is an attractive lead here.

Mae Clarke of the Cagney grapefruit is the Indian Chief's wife. All of the Indians have shaved chests. The most familiar actor to most will be Neville Brand as one of the Indians.

Okay, and the guys will love it.

A colorful bit of fiction that shows the good and bad on both sides.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 9 June 2022]

Evil white men and misguided young Iroquois braves (who have not yet earned their intelligence feathers) are the ones responsible for a war between the natives and the settlers in this well plotted "eastern" with silly dialogue and ridiculous casting. The Mohawks are a peaceful tribe who have taken in their displaced Tuscaroras brothers, forced off their land up north by other white settlers. They are vindictive to all white men, and their anger is not aided by the presence of the nasty John Hoyt, the self entitled original settler who wants the Indians and the other whites out and is determined to create a war where he comes out the only survivor. Great way to settle, create peace, and build a community.

Mohawk chief Ted De Corsia has been living in peace with the settlers, but he finds that two of the younger Mohawks as well as the Tuscaroras don't want to continue that peaceful existence, mainly thanks to Hoyt's manipulations and memories of the starving Tuscaroras from their displacement. The pretty young Rita Gam is an Indian maiden in love with young white artist Scott Brady who is involved with Boston native Lori Nelson, also distracted by settler Allison Hayes, later the 50 ft woman.

Neville Brand is a Mohawk warrior who manipulates young Tommy Cook, the chief's son, into joining his cause even though Cook is a friend of Brady's. With the joining forces of the Tuscaroras, the white man will have a dangerous battle on their hands, especially when Hoyt accelerates the hatred by murdering the chief's son. While the natives look realistic in their outfits, the English that they speak is far too polished and the young natives seem as if they've just come in from the hop.

The casting of obviously white actors truly takes away from any realism, although Brand and De Corsia are somewhat believable. Veteran actress Mae Clarke ("The Public Enemy's grapefruit gal) fortunately doesn't speak many lines as her New York accent would give her away in a second. Then there's 40's comic Vera Vague as Nelson's uppity aunt, initially thinking that the natives were "cute", then revealing her prejudices in the last scene. She's far from the lovable star of Columbia shorts who always exclaimed "Oh you naughty boy!" I enjoyed the film in spite of its many flaws, mainly because of the painting like vision that came off of the camera work, and found the idea of both good and bad on both sides to be a fair representation of a historically true incident, greatly fictionalized for the screen.

The Tuscaroras Have The Long Hair, The Mohawks Have The Mohawks.........................

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 20 April 2008]

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.

Oh Oh War Dance Time

[irishcoffee630 · 7/10 · 4 August 2003]

Let me just say that I did not expect much from this film when I popped it into the DVD player. It is on a 4 movie set from Platinum Great Westerns Vol 8. that I paid only $4.00. Well, they must of remastered this one, quality is excellent. Almost looks like a 3D color movie at times. The flick itself...pretty good not a western at all though. Set out east in 1790 with the blue coats and settlers invading upon the Indian's habitat. Commissioned Boston artist Scott Brady frolicking with 3 beautiful women, fiancee Lori Nelson, bar maid Alison Hayes, and Indian princess Rita Gamm. Sinister demented land owner John Hoyt plays the white skins against the red skins so both wipe each other out and the valley will be all his. Crazed Mohawk Neville Brand doing frenzied war dances, only makes matters worse. Ends with exciting attack on the fort, bad guy gets his in spades, and Brady picking the right gal for marriage. The movie is no deep drama by any means, but it moves very quickly, nice to look at in a 1950's avante garde way, some (not all) of the outdoor sets are really on a studio sound stage so there are paintings as backdrops that are VERY obvious. Fun movie though to enjoy for what it is.

a pioneer (scott brady) romances three gorgeous women.

[dougbrode · 1/10 · 23 March 2006]

Kurt Neumann gets screen credit for directing Mohawk, but I'd estimate that about one third of the film was shot by John Ford. Not that Pappy was around at all while this abysmal excuse for a B eastern/western was made, mind you. A little more than fifteen years earlier, he had directed a film on the same subject, the majestic Drums Along the Mohawk, for 20th Century Fox, with Henry Fonda in the lead. Somehow, some way, the producers of Mohawk got the rights to use the magnificent action scenes - attack on a frontier fort, a lone man running through the woods to get reinforcements while pursued by three Indians - within the context of their cheapo-cheapo production, which essentially is to westerns what Robot Monster is to sci-fi: As awful as it is, if you catch it in the right mood, you may find it to be so bad that it's entertaining. The plot, totally anachronistic as compared to Ford's ultra-authenticity, has Scott Brady (later Shotgun Slade on TV) as a loverboy (though a solid actor, he wasn't cut out for such a part). He's a painter who talks gorgeous Hollywood starlets (er . . . make them frontier lasses) into taking off most of their clothes for one of his portraits. Lori Nelson (pert blonde), Allison Hayes (star of The Fifty Foot Woman - the original, that is), and Rita Gam (as a Mohawk babe) all fall for him, and his character has more in common with Hugh Hefner than Henry Fonda in Ford's film. The point is, most of Mohawk was shot on a studio set in about three days, with a frontier fort that is mostly a big painting the actors stand in front of. Then someone screams something on the order of "The Mohawks are coming!" and, whoooosh - we cut to stock footage from Ford's film that is on a grand scale. The entire chase of Fonda is included, only when it comes time for a close-up, there is Brady's face instead of Hank's. It's that kind of a movie. Remember, you were warned.

Fast on the Draw

[richardchatten · 7/10 · 19 December 2020]

The results he achieved recycling scenes from 'Drums Along the Mohawk' obviously satisfied director Kurt Neumann since he repeated the exercise four years later with footage from 'King Solomon's Mines' in a film called 'Watusi!'. The result is enjoyable rough & tumble hokum with Scott Brady painting incredibly advanced work for the late 1780s (I wonder what become of them after filming?) and obvious native American types Ted De Corsia and Neville Brand (the former wearing what looks like a flower pot on his head) on the warpath. Heading a strong female contingent are brittle blonde Lori Nelson, sultry redhead Allison Hayes, acidulous maiden aunt Vera Vague and mother & daughter squaws Mae Clarke and Rita Gam; the latter tall and athletic in pigtails and a trouser suit.

Not Bad

[januszlvii · 4/10 · 12 June 2022]

Mohawk is not a bad western, but it certainly is not Drums Along The Mohawk where Mohawk stole scenes from ( especially because Henry Fonda, Claudette Colbert and Director John Ford are not in this movie): It is about painter. Jonathan Adams ( Scott Brady) and the three very different women he romances: Blonde fiancé Cynthia ( Lori Nelson), redhead Greta.( Allison Hayes), and brunette Indian princess Onida ( Rita Gam). While Mohawk is not an outright comedy, it is NOT a movie to be taken seriously either ( especially seeing Mae Clarke of all people as the mother of Onida, and a plot you have seen hundreds of times before and since). Who does Adams end up with? Spoilers ahead:,It should be obvious right from the beginning it is Onida, who he has the hots for as soon as he sees her. As for the other two, Greta is equally beautiful (although in a different way), while Cynthia is not on their level, and she would be my last choice. I give the movie 4/10 stars: 2 for looking at Allison Hayes and 2 for looking at Rita Gam.

Let's See What 50 Bucks Will Buy

[dougdoepke · 27 March 2009]

I remember as a teenager passing a theater poster of a scantily clad Rita Gam and wishing I had the money to go in. I know now what I didn't then-- it was my lucky day. Even a longer look at that shapely leg wouldn't have made up for all the bad acting (deCorsia's wooden Indian should be planted in front of a cigar store), the stupefied poetic dialogue ("You shine like a moon above the stars,"), the ridiculous Hollywood casting (malt-shop teen Tommy Cook as Indian warrior), and the ultra-cheap production values (backgrounds painted by art class dropouts). Heck, they couldn't even stage minimal outdoor battle scenes, using stock shots from 1939's Drums Along the Mohawk instead. Note too, how artificially the Indians emerge from the forest as though they're expecting a parade to pass by. At least the producers knew enough to play up the sex angle with a bevy of Indian maidens apparently recruited from a Las Vegas stage show. I'm just sorry that director Kurt Neumann's name is attached to this misfire. He did manage a number of quality low-budget sci-fi flicks like The Fly (1958), Kronos (1957), and the ground-breaking Rocketship X-M (1950). Maybe there's a lesson here, like it's easier to direct bug-eyed monsters than a bunch of phony Indians.

"When a woman puts on her war paint, she's more dangerous than any Mohawk."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 5 September 2012]

The IMDb credits state this film was done in Pathecolor, but I have to admit, this was the oddest looking movie I've experienced yet. Repeatedly one has characters in vibrant color back-dropped by scenery or sets in black and white. At times various scenes appear entirely sepia hued, and there are frequent transitions between day and night within the same time frame. More than anything, it appeared to me that someone was hired to colorize a black and white film, and simply decided to do only half the job. Since no one else mentioned this in the other reviews I've read, I might assume it's a quirk of the print I viewed from the Mill Creek Western Collection. So if you have that set, you'll probably experience what I just did.

Now I don't know what to make of Scott Brady. He portrays sort of a womanizer in the picture and his taste runs the gamut, but all of his girlfriends are quite attractive. It made me chuckle actually, because in his 1959/1960 TV Western Series 'Shotgun Slade', he also fancied himself somewhat of a ladies man, but in a somewhat laughable sort of way. You'll just have to catch a couple of those episodes to see what I mean.

The other reviewers on this board recap this story pretty well so no need to go into detail here. The kick for me was the casting for this flick, with Rita Gam, Lori Nelson and Allison Hayes all vieing for Brady's attention. TV and movie Western fans will no doubt enjoy catching Neville Brand here as a Tuscarora Indian Chief who wants to mix it up with the white soldiers. He's kept in check somewhat by Mohawk Chief Kowanen (Ted DeCorsia), but the picture does manage a fairly thrilling battle to close out the show. And say, did I get this right? That's Mae Clarke as Kowanen's wife Minikah, who a quarter century earlier caught a grapefruit in the smacker from Jimmy Cagney in "The Public Enemy". There's a bit of trivia you'll be glad to know.

What's rather interesting to me now that I've watched the picture, I actually rather enjoyed it even though it's pretty clichéd in most respects. Maybe it's because the principal players didn't seem to be taking things all too seriously and just had a good time putting this thing together. The one scene that really stood out for me was when Jonathan Adams (Brady) and Indian babe Onida (Gam) went for a swim, and wound up playing with a Mohawk version of Frisbee.

Western for 1956 youngsters

[happytrigger-64-390517 · 5/10 · 30 March 2021]

Yes, when I saw that western, I thought I was in a drive in, in my Corvette Stingray with my girl. I was focused on the 3 delicious pin ups, Lori Nelson, Allison Hayes and Rita Gam (as the Indian chief's mohawh daughter, a must see), all three in love with the Casanova painter, fond of nature... shot in studio !!! I forgot all the ridiculous Indian scenes wearing unrealistic costumes, even Neville Brand is badly directed, Neumann was more concentrated on directing his delicious starlettes. And what about the chief's son, definitively not acting like an Indian but rather like a 1956 teenager from Blackboard Jungle. That parody of western would have exasperated late Mr Tavernier. On the French DVD, there is in the bonus a specialist of western and Indians who comments brilliantly this film and the true story of Mohawks, don't miss him.

Handsome Hero + 3 Gorgeous Gals = Fun, sexy Western!

[sdiner82 · 9/10 · 19 November 2014]

Forget all the nasty things that reviewers have said about MOHAWK, an unpretentious, thoroughly enjoyable, ahead-of-its-time 1956 Western starring handsome Scott Brady (was the word "hunk" in use as early as the 1950s?) as an artist from Boston commissioned to do a series of frontier paintings to present the Iroquois Indians in a favorable light. Since Brady usually does these paintings with his shirt off, small wonder he attracts the amorous attentions of a trio of gorgeous gals: brunette Indian maiden Rita Gam, auburn-haired sexpot Allison Hayes and blonde beauty Lori Nelson (try and guess which one he winds up marrying; a nice surprise!). For about an hour, the romantic cavorting of Brady and his beauties take the forefront (the Breen office must have been napping during a lakeside interlude and make-out session with Brady & Gam wearing as little as possible). Then the final 20 minutes get down to the inevitable cowboys vs. Indians clash, but since the screenplay is refreshingly original enough to make a distinction between the good and bad white men, and the savage vs. civilized Indians, you'll probably care about who dies and who survives. And rather than try to stage the climactic uprising within the limits of its modest budget, MOHAWK smoothly incorporates some spectacular footage from John Ford's 1939 extravaganza "Drums Along the Mohawk" (which accounts, I imagine, for why this independently-produced movie was released by 20th Century-Fox). So what's not to like? Slick direction, a sensible and often good-humored screenplay, a terrific supporting cast, and beautiful color photography contribute to making this good-natured escapism a lot more enjoyable than many of its big-budget, boring CinemaScope counterparts from the same era. A hearty, sincere, belated thanks to everyone involved with MOHAWK. They appear to be having a very good time, and so should you, the viewer.

"Indoor" outdoors picture

[mountaingoat100 · 6/10 · 21 April 2014]

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

Turned Out to Be a Decent Grade-B Western

[Uriah43 · 5/10 · 4 March 2015]

"Jonathan Adams" (Scott Brady) is a young man from Boston who has his heart set on painting. But rather than paint portraits in that city he has chosen to live in the American wilderness near a fort in the Mohawk Valley of New York. Because of his youth and charm he has attracted the attention of the lovely barmaid by the name of "Greta Jones" (Allison Hayes) who has willingly agreed to pose for him as a model. However, things begin to get a bit difficult for him when his fiancé named "Cynthia Stanhope" (Lori Nelson) arrives unexpectedly from Boston. Likewise, his chance encounter with an Iroquois maiden by the name of "Onida" (Rita Gam) really complicates things. Now rather than reveal any more of the movie and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that, all things considered, this turned out to be a decent grade-B western. Admittedly, there were some parts which were a bit corny and it didn't have an all-star cast or a superior script. But I enjoyed it and the three actresses just mentioned certainly didn't hurt the scenery in any way. Accordingly, I rate it as about average.

A must for lovers of stock footage!

[JohnHowardReid · 3/10 · 17 November 2017]

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.

Though "Charles Manson" tried to start . . .

[tadpole-596-918256 · 7/10 · 11 March 2018]

. . . an American Race War with his "Helter Skelter" plot (something many psychopaths have attempted and failed to do before and after the Tate killings), MOHAWK documents part of the True History of America's Actual, Real Life Race War. Playing the role of an Iago or Manson-like character stirring up the Racism always bubbling near the surface on both sides is would-be New York developer "Butler." The Historical Record shows that this Cultural Conflagration was not quenched until the rampant production of Multi-Racial children could be accomplished. "Jonathan 'Keoga' Adams" and "Oneida" comprise the heroic couple who take a crack at peace during MOHAWK. Thanks to them and their colleagues in such mixed blessings, "26 and me" recently has reported that 98% of the people living Today on Native Preserves have at least some European roots. Though a few thoughtless Revisionists may feign outrage when lab results prove a Swede or Finn to be up their Family Tree, MOHAWK illustrates exactly why this was the only route to peace.

For The Love Of Three Women

[StrictlyConfidential · 4/10 · 21 October 2021]

"Mohawk" was originally released back in 1956.

Anyway - As the story goes - With an apparent attitude of the-more-the merrier, an artist working at a remote army post tries to keep track of his romantic entanglements with an Indian Chief's daughter, a storekeeper's daughter and his fiancee who has just arrived from the East. These problems pale when a war erupts between the army and the Indian tribe, incited by an angry local.

It's nothing like a good 60s western

[grybop · 3/10 · 12 February 2002]

Ridiculous western about the love of Casanova painter for an Indian girl. It was shot almost entirely in a studio, though the story is set outdoors, so it seems pretty fake, too. It also features a battle between, you guessed it, the BAD Indians and the GOOD whites. Oh, those bad Indians....

3

Among the worst dialog I've ever heard in a film...and I've seen a lot of films!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 23 December 2014]

"Mohawk" is a truly awful movie. In fact, of the 17000 plus films I've reviewed for IMDb, I'd place it among the 10 or so worst movies when it comes to dialog. Yes, the delivery and words the actors speak is simply dreadful. Is it as bad as "Plan 9 From Outer Space" or "Robot Monster"? No...but it's certainly terrible.

The film is set during the American colonial period and the Mohawks in the title of the movie are not happy because they're losing their land. But, since the thing was made in the 1950s, they are the bad guys. Despite being set during a pretty exciting time period, however, nothing about this is exciting and the movie is dreadfully slow. But, it's not quite horrible enough to earn a 1...not that this is any consolation.

Very well-acted and unusually enjoyable movie--drama and adventure

[silverscreen888 · 8/10 · 10 June 2005]

Kurt Neumann directed "Mohawk" with unusual skill, and the cast of this amazingly entertaining adventure-drama is far above the usual B-film independent acting ensemble of amy era. The storyline is also quite clearly developed and an interesting historical treatment. In the film's first eight minutes, we meet and care about a dozen characters and set up a strong confrontation between the Mohawk tribe led by T4ed de Corsia and Mae Clarke and the soldiers and settler at Fort Alden, led by John Hudson and the villain of the piece, John Hoyt. Besides these fine actors, the film features Vera Vague, Lori Nelson, Neville Brand, Tommy Cook, Allison Hayes, Rhys Williams and Harry Swoger, plus Rita Gam and Scott Brady as the leads. Its literate script abounds in interesting scenes; the outdoor scenes work well. Gam and de Corsia seem perfect for their parts, giving their speeches expressing the Amerind point of view unusual intensity. Many reviewers liked this film, using terms such as lively, interesting and memorable to describe it. There are small glitches in production, and the movie needed a bigger budget. But I have seen it in B/W, color, English and Spanish; and I can recommend it to those who enjoy Grecianzed Near-Easterns and literate sci-fi and detective films for the same qualities those genres possess--it's about as far from anti-individualist mean-streets naturalism populated by debased postmodernist or character-flawed ugly types as one can get--which is why we go to movies. Its realism is heightened by considerable artistry; the battle scenes are epic; and its psychology works very well on several levels of meaning. A credit to all concerned.

A Dumber-Than-Dumb Romance, Mohawk-Style

[strong-122-478885 · 4/10 · 4 August 2011]

Mohawk has got to be one of the corniest cornball movie-romances ever. When it comes to "love" stories, Mohawk's contrivances border, at times, on the downright laughable.

Set in the mid-1800s at Fort Alden (a remote army post in Texas), Johnathon Adams (a hack-artist and full-time womanizer who's presently juggling 2 gorgeous babes) falls (if you can believe this) head-over-heels for a Pocahontis-type, Iroquois beauty named Onida. With her clear, blue eyes (yes, blue) and decidedly Caucasian features, you can well-bet that Onida's cover-girl looks only add to the already escalating absurdity of Mohawk's flimsier-than-flimsy story.

If you can believe it - Not even when war breaks out between the whites and the redskins does this truly cornball romance between Johnathon and Onida lose its demented intensity or pale even a fraction.

Ho-hum.

As an added bonus that hinges on the ridiculous - Mohawk contains numerous scenes where one minute it's daytime and the next moment it's nightfall - or - Often enough, one minute the skies are perfectly clear and then, presto, clouds dominate the entire heavens.

Anyways - If you're bored and looking for a laugh, or two, check out Mohawk.

people at the crossroads, awareness and conflicts

[Cristi_Ciopron · 5/10 · 20 September 2015]

The characters of this comedy live at crossroads: the painter (between the fort and Boston and the Iroquois village; also between art for customers, and art for art's sake, and art as a sensitive depiction of those less known to the larger world), Greta (between hopeless love and her habits and resignation), the misanthrope (between settlers, officers and natives), the officer (on the threshold of two worlds, between law and custom and anarchy, being just in unbalanced situations), the spinster, the Iroquois (between wisdom and mistrust); some learn to adapt (like the painter, Onida, her father the chief), others already have (like Greta or the officer in command of the fort), others fail (like the misanthrope and the Tuscarora), others are victims (like Onida's brother), and settlers continue to arrive; most pass from laughter and nonchalance to speed and strategy (the painter, the officer, Onida, her father laugh, the painter, the officer again, the army called for rescue speed, run), because most of them still rely on wisdom, which has different forms for different places in life, yet all these forms have to converge for the good of the communities (the fort, the Iroquois village, and as a matter of fact the script takes up these two poles, of strongly differentiated community, rather then the settlers, an amorphous quantity), not only the settlers, but also the niece and the aunt don't belong to the plot, the fort and the city loose a painter, the Iroquois chief gains a son, the painter guesses this is the more coherent solution, but the village remains not so far from the fort, and quietly surrounded by settlers, the situation remains far from ideal, with mutual hostility only overcome by a few, mutual hostility as expressed by the wagon master and the settlers and the misanthrope and the Tuscarora and then the tribe. Brady does a swashbuckler role, for a wholly inoffensive kids' movie, anachronistic in most respects, there are at least a couple of involuntarily funny scenes (when the painter escapes from the Iroquois village and runs across the fields and woods, chased by the natives, and when these are shown pillaging the settlers and leaving with chickens in their hands), and severely unlikely situations (the girl arrived from Boston and claiming to be the painter's fiancée), and the movie doesn't convince as an idyll; if the painter wasn't supposed to be annoying, intensely lousy, the misanthrope was, and Hoyt achieves this with an unsettling efficiency. This mediocre movie begins in an atmosphere of gaiety and vaudeville, with a lousy, annoying shrewd painter being humbly and submissively pursued by several women, and everybody offering hearty acting, but wait until the confident painter and the Iroquois woman start learning the language of love, in the Mohawk village (these are perhaps pleasant moments, but for Brady's trying to look confident and assured), then the war council is gathered (after the chief's son has been killed by John Hoyt), the painter runs away, the army also arrives running, both these scenes look oddly silly.

I liked one of the women. She's the country version of a _soubrette, clever and generous. Allison Hayes ('Greta') is the only likable character, physically delicious.

It is a liberal's idyll, with strong and assertive Iroquois women, good-natured soldiers and pompous but wise natives, most bent on peaceful cohabitation; not only the characters, but the idyll is made of cardboard, because if the idea was generous, the talents were mediocre. Rita Gam as 'Onida', and Brady aren't my idea of movie leads. All this could have been charming, and perhaps seen by a kid it was so, though its fate seems deserved. With an ungainly script, the movie could have been more funny if someone else than Brady had been given the lead.

Charming, silly and looks lovely

[rose-294 · 8/10 · 8 June 2009]

Charming, if silly western, clean and wholesome to the core (despite outrageously stupid scenes with stereotypically stupid Indians) and photographed with lush 1950's Technicolour which makes the scenery look lovely. The story has an artist Scott Brady trying to stop the war between whites and Indians, while romancing his fiancée Lori Nelson, his model Alison Hayes (who looks gorgeous in the aforementioned Technicolour) and an Indian princess Rita Gam. Directed by sci-fi expert Kurt Neumann from the script by Maurice Geraghty and Milton Krims, this is romantic, entertaining and as much fantasy as any fairytale.