The Last of the Mohicans

The title card for the viewed print reads: "Harry M. Goetz Presents an Edward Small Production of James Fenimore Cooper's Classic of Early America." Film Daily reported on August 12, 1936 that in honor of this film's world premiere at Saratoga Springs, New York, George H. Bull, president of the Saratoga Racing Association, named various races after characters in the film, including Uncas, Hawkeye, the Mohican Handicap, the Chingachgook Handicap and the Magua Handicap. Film Daily also reported that the Loew's theater circuit opened the film on August 14, 1936. This film was shot at RKO-Pathé Studios as part of RKO's arrangement with United Artists. Location shooting included a principal unit under George Seitz at Sherwood Forest, CA, and a second unit, under the direction of Wallace Fox, in northern California and later at Cedar Lake in Big Bear, CA. According to Hollywood Reporter, an Eagle Boy Scout was hired to accompany the crew to Sherwood Forest, where he instructed Indian extras on how to start fires with flint and steel. Hollywood Reporter also states that actor Phillip Reed persuaded Harry Goetz to allow Harvey Shepard to act as his "whoops" stand-in after being advised by his vocal instructor that the raucous war whoops were injuring his voice.
       A Hollywood Reporter ad for this film credits Paul Eagler, not Robert Planck, as both director of photography and special effects cameraman, and lists Roy Webb, who is credited on the film as music director, with the musical score. Copyright records list Nathaniel Shilkret as music director. Both of these men were musical directors at RKO at the time of this production. Ken Goldsmith was on leave from Republic at the time of this production, while George Seitz was under contract to M-G-M at the time. Early Hollywood Reporter production charts list Ralph Block with Philip Dunne as screenwriter, but Block does not appear in later production charts. According to Hollywood Reporter, Merle Oberon was originally set to star in this film. Juvenile actor David Scott, who was placed under contract to Edward Small in October 1935, was also scheduled to appear in this film; however, no information has been found to confirm his appearance in the final film. According to a Los Angeles Times news item on August 23, 1935, this film was originally going to be shot in Technicolor. According to an article in New York Times, Randolph Scott, who was borrowed from Paramount, tried to get out of playing Hawkeye because he believed it improbable that his character would speak the "flowery Cooper dialogue" called for in the script; Scott reportedly balked at the line, "I take my leave when the sun goes down behind yon hill," and finally was allowed to change some of his dialogue. According to Daily Variety, assistant director Jack Boland sued Reliance, Harry Goetz, Edward Small, Morris Small and research director Ed Lambert for $2,000, which he claimed was due as salary for his directing services following a fifty percent paycut of his $250 weekly salary during production. No other sources verify Boland's work on this production, however, and it is unclear what, if any, contributions he made to the film.
       A New York Times article notes that Lambert relied on the Remington Schuyler painting "Custer's Last Stand," which portrays several scalpings in progressive stages, to make the scalping scenes as authentic as possible. Lambert is quoted as saying, "There is nothing facetious in this matter...the action must necessarily be correct in every detail in order to stave off the hordes of boner-hunters all over the country." Lambert also consulted the descendants of what New York Times referred to as "this country's outstanding scalpers." According to Film Daily, Goetz offered a personal prize of one-hundred dollars for the best exploitation campaign for this film. A news item in Film Daily on August 25, 1936 states that B. E. Fry of the Loew's Vendome theater in Nashville hired two Western Union boys to carry a six-foot telegram addressed to the mayor, inviting him to the film's opening, through the city's streets to City Hall.
       Cooper's novel was also the source of the following productions: the 1920 Maurice Tourneur film of the same title, directed by Tourneur and Clarence L. Brown, and starring Wallace Beery and Barbara Bedford; a 1947 Columbia film entitled Last of Redmen, directed by George Sherman and starring Jon Hall; a 1950 United Artists production entitled The Iroquois Trail, directed by Phil Karlson and starring George Montgomery and Marian Thorne; an eight-part BBC production aired in 1971, directed by David Maloney and starring Patricia Maynard, Tim Goodman and Kenneth Ives; a 1977 television movie, directed by James L. Conway and starring Steve Forrest and a 1992 Twentieth Century-Fox release, directed by Michael Mann, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. The 1992 film was partially based on Philip Dunne's screenplay.