The Last of the Mohicans

I remember this miniseries on Masterpiece Theater during the early 70's . I was 11 or 12 yrs old. I have never seen it run again. Can someone tell me if it is available on VHS? I have a reel to reel tape of the chase seen where Hawkeye says "Chingachgook, lay an oar on the land and we will double on the dogs". There was a teriffic drum beat to this. I recall the indoor scenes being rather low budget. There was a lot of blood and cleavage.

Fortunately, several of the Masterpiece Theater productions are slowly being re-released on DVD, which is allowing those of us who loved the various stories to revisit them. I remember seeing The Last of the Mohicans when it previously aired in 1971, and loved the story so much, I bought and read the paperback and subsequent Hawkeye stories.

This production closely follows the book, and compared with today's production, it may seem dated, since the indoor scenes are filmed in a studio. Today's younger crowd will not appreciate it, but they have to remember that budget was a major factor in what could be done. The producers wanted to lovingly tell the tale as it was written. Today's productions are hacked up and condensed to the point that sometimes the intent of the author is lost. Also, today's directors/producers spend most of the budget for filming on location, at the sacrifice of the plot.

So try and overlook the production qualities and enjoy the story, the way James Fenimore Cooper basically wrote it.

Filmed in the Scottish Highlands, this rendition of LOTM is the most faithful to the Cooper novel of all of them (and there have been many including the popular 1992 Hollywood version which was markedly different from the novel in many places). Perhaps the next most accurate LOTM is the 1920's B&W version - though not nearly as faithful as this Masterpiece Theater piece.

M/T originally presented in in their first year, 1971, as a series of 8 episodes of 45 minutes each and later had a non-M/T version of 13 episodes of about 30 minutes played by a few public TV stations in the mid-'70s. The main difference was the M/T version had an introduction (somewhat flawed as I recall) by Alastair Cooke.

The 13 episode version (same as M/T except for intro) does exist - we are watching it currently on DVD. The double Emmy award-winning producer of this '71 version (John McRae) says that the BBC destroyed the production masters in about the mid-'70s but he feels it was one of his best efforts and also says that it was nominated for the Emmy at the time (but didn't win).

This adaptation of the Cooper classic had a tremendous impact upon me as a young boy. I saw it twice on "Masterpiece Theatre", and have since not seen it for thirty years. It was a sweepingly beautiful film, and the actors were absolutly compelling. It would be great to see this production released on video or DVD format.

As a kid, I was moved by this version when it first aired in the 70's and again when I viewed it recently. The richness of dialog in the script and the quality of acting make this version my favorite by far. This is one for your bookshelf.