There is also a sub-plot involving a romance between the Pathfinder and Alison, a young Englishwoman who speaks fluent French and is therefore used as a spy to discover the French plans. The plot revolves around a British plan to sabotage a road that the French have built to supply their forts. The film opens with a massacre of the pro-British Mohican tribe by the pro-French Mingo this leads to the Pathfinder and his Mohican blood-brother Chingachgook enlisting in the service of the British. Both the British and the French had Indian allies during the war in general the Algonquian-speaking tribes favoured the British and their Iroquoian enemies the French. Although the setting is in what would today be part of the eastern United States, the film is officially classified as a Western because at this period much of upstate New York was still regarded as the Wild West. (I know that by the fifties it was becoming acceptable to show a white hero in love with a beautiful Indian maiden, provided she was played by a white actress, as was done in "Broken Arrow" and "Across the Wide Missouri", but the opposite scenario would still have been taboo). He is a white man who grew up among American Indians such characters were popular with the makers of Westerns because they possessed all the hunting and tracking skills of the Indians and represented something exotic, yet could still be shown in romantic relationships with white heroines without breaching the Production Code's strictures against miscegenation. In this film, however, the main character is always simply referred to as "the Pathfinder", and his real name is never mentioned. Like "The Last of the Mohicans", "The Pathfinder" was one of James Fenimore Cooper's "Leatherstocking" novels, all centred upon the character of Natty Bumppo, aka Hawkeye. (Others include the Daniel Day-Lewis "The Last of the Mohicans" from 1992, another version of that story from 1936, which I have not seen, and "North-West Passage" from the 1950s). Even the War of Independence has not been a particularly popular subject, despite its central role in American history, and "The Pathfinder" is one of the few films about the French and Indian War. The opening up of the eastern half of the North American continent during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century has inspired comparatively few films compared with the vast number about "how the West was won". This is the sort of thing you learn when you are a history teacher like I used to be.įor some reason, Hollywood has always taken more interest in the Old West than in the Even Older East. Instead, the cannonball would bash into people and kill them that way.far less effective and totally unlike the deaths in the film. Well, in the 1700s, cannonballs did NOT explode and send shrapnel everywhere.this was developed around 1800. 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. Had they stuck to the original story, no doubt I would have rated it a bit higher. A good action/adventure film that held my interest througout. The acting is very good and the production values likewise. In many ways, the film plays like a t in the mid-west/eastern United States in the 1750s-60s.before the even was a United States. 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. 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). It is good.but not a lot like the original source material. 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. 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. "The Pathfinder" is a film based on the James Fenimore Cooper novel.