Drums Along the Mohawk (1939)

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Directed by John Ford.

Starring Ward Bond, John Carradine, Claudette Colbert, Eddie Collins, Henry Fonda, Edna May Oliver, Arthur Shields.

John Ford directed this outdoor adventure set in the American Colonial period. Gilbert and Lana Martin (Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert) are a young couple trying to make a home in New York State's Mohawk Valley, but repeated attacks by Indians drive them, along with other settlers in the valley, into a nearby fort, where they watch helplessly as the natives lay waste to their farms and cabins. A spinster with a large farm, Sarah McKlennar (Edna May Oliver), comes to their rescue when she hires Gilbert to work as a field hand and gives the Martins a place to stay. The rugged life of the farm and frontier doesn't always sit well with Lana, who was raised in wealthy and comfortable circumstances; in time she develops a thicker skin and learns to love their new life in the Mohawk Valley, especially after giving birth to their first son. Gilbert joins the militia, who must do battle both with the local Indian tribes and the British soldiers who are provoking them to battle. Gilbert returns wounded, and as he recuperates, a healthy crop rises in the fields, but their satisfaction is short lived when the Indians once again hit the warpath. 1939 was a stellar year for John Ford; along with this highly successful adventure tale, which was nominated for three Academy Awards, Ford also released the ground-breaking western Stagecoach. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Drums Along the Mohawk (1939, U ...
by CinemaRian in CinemaRian Blog

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"So here we come to Drums Along the Mohawk, another installment in my mission to see every John Ford film. This is made somewhat easier by the fact that only a fraction of his lengthy ouvre has been released on DVD. In case you are wondering, I didn't finish my last Ford film, Mary of Scotland, because it was really boring. Drums Along the Mohawk is somewhat better, but is certainly not one of Ford's classics. Although it's often mistaken as one of the director's Westerns, this film is actual a Revolutionary War film, although it does take place in the then frontier city of Albany, New York and has (stereotyped) Indians as its antagonists. I have always wondered why there have been surprisingly few movies about this period, and there is not really one Revolutionary War picture that has gone down in cinema history as even a minor classic. Perhaps the problem is that old style warfare does not lend itself to cinema (Kubrick did it about as well as anyone in Barry Lyndon, but he probab ... " [More]

Review by All Movie Guide

All Movie Guide

liked it.

The first of many collaborations between director John Ford and Henry Fonda, this fine, typically Fordian vision of community life also features the director's first use of the then recently developed Technicolor process. A visually appealing slice of Americana, the film places a youthful, yet stoic Fonda in a series of iconic poses as he and his new wife, an incongruously soigné Claudette Colbert struggle to maintain their farm during the outbreak of the Revolutionary War in the Indian-infested Mohawk Valley. As the farmers fight off Indian attacks, with the well-born Colbert learning to adapt to a difficult new environment, the director links self-sacrifice with heroism. As with much of Ford, the characters' behavior is concerned with the enactment of rituals and the display of pageantry, and the main characters, essentially types. He's more willing to allow the character actors, like Oscar-nominated Edna May Oliver, who plays a feisty widow, to indulge in some theatrics. Despite the hardships the farmers must endure, the film's bright look signals an optimism characteristic of the director during this period, perhaps addressing his Depression-era audience about the grit and cohesiveness required to survive in difficult times. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide

Tags: nativeamerican , invasion , colonialism , frontier , settler
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