Last of the Mohicians had been a big hit for Edward Small but he didn't follow it up. Sam Katzman, who was a slightly cheaper version of Edward Small, decided to have his own crack at the novel, and he would do a bunch of other films set in the French Indian Wars.
This has a bigger budget than later Katzman efforts - it's in colour, has impressive production values (well, at the beginning and end... they avoid any siege scenes at Fort William Henry), and benefits from a strong cast. Jon Hall plays Duncan Heyward, normally a villain (the stuffy Pom), Michael O'Shea is Hawkeye, Evelyn Ankers and Julie Bishop are the girls, Buster Crabbe is Magua, Rick Vallin is Uncas.
O'Shea plays Hawkeye as a scuffy Irishman, which actually works quite well, because it plays up the conflict between him and the stuffy Brits. Hall, who one normally would assume would play Hawkeye, is the Brit soldier and is effective too. Crabbe is really good as the tormented Magua.
There's some annoying kid, the girl's brother, who pretends to be an Indian, plus Uncas the Indian friend of Hawkeye who gets to kill Magua. I liked the scene where Ankers tried to seduce Hall. And it's moving at the end when Hawkeye stands by the grave of Bishop (stabbed to death) and Uncas.
George Sherman directed.
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