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.

Jay Silverheels makes a far less unlikely Chingachgook than Lon Chaney in the later TV series, but gets a fraction of the screen time.

At least this perfunctory Sam Katzman production boasts Technicolor, attractive locations and the handsome Helena Carter; not that leading man George Montgomery deserves her since he's so boorish towards her, even after he's supposedly fallen in love with her.

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.

James Fenimore Cooper's The Pathfinder has George Montgomery playing a defector after Montgomery in the title role and Jay Silverheels as Chingachgook find the Mohican tribe completely wiped out with only young Uncas left to tell the tale.

It was the Delaware tribe who have lined up with the French as the French and Indian War has started.

With Silverheels as a contact, Montgomery goes to the French and offers to be a guide. His mission is to determine their strength. He also has along with him Helena Carter who speaks French because he does not speak a word.

Routine action/adventure from Sam Katzman who was getting a bit more budget to work with since leaving Monogram.

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.