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I have to honestly say that I did not even know there was a silent version of this film. I actually ordered it because I like the story and thought it would be interesting to see a silent version. Viewing this version was- breathtaking to say the least. The video transfer of this film is remarkably good which helps but more importantly the story itself and the acting I found incredibly interesting. Unlike the Dnaiel Day-Lewis version, which is excellent in its own right- this version has Hawkeye as a Minor Character. It focuses on the affection between Uncus (one of the 2 last of the Mohicans) and the General's Dauhter Cora (played by Madeline Stowe in the modern version). It must have been somewhat unsettling back in 1920 to even hint at a relationship between a Native American man and a Caucasian woman. This movie only hints at this relationship but I found it to be very believable and a refreshing point of view tastefully done. Another major plus of this movie was the actress who played Cora. If you view this movie it will be difficult to not think about this woman. I've seldom seen an actress or an actor emote so much simply by facial expression. Wallace Beery portrays Magua, the "bad" guy, menacingly well and, early in the film, you can see a very young Boris Karloff as an Indian raider. If you enjoy the story of Last of the Mohicans and if you have had the pleasure of seeing any silent film masterpiece you will thoroughly enjoy this DVD.
Not the experience it could have been...
An excellent film with outstanding print quality but the whole experience of watching it was spoilt for me by a very poor musical score and sub titles that are simply text on a black screen. Atmosphere is so important when watching a silent film -- you have to be totally immersed in all the aspects that constitute the whole. Having a totally inappropriate and monotonous synth score and sub titles that have no charm whatsoever,kept jarring me back to the present and as a result I could not appreciate the film as it deserved to be. A solo piano would have been preferable if a cost was a consideration and there is no excuse for not using, or at least reproducing, the original titles.
The Best of the Mohicans
Last of the Mohicans is a very fine silent adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's Classic novel. The film distils a long novel into its fairly short running time, but remains faithful to the essence of Cooper's story. The main change is that the role of Hawkeye is relegated to one of secondary importance. The emphasis of the film is on the romance between Uncas and Cora Munro and the scheming of the evil Magua to have Cora for himself.
The performances in the film are naturalistic and full of feeling. Wallace Beery as Magua makes a fine villain, while Barbara Bedford is a stunning Cora, brave, beautiful and feisty. But what makes this film work so well is the use of location, the glorious scenery and the thrilling action. Some of this action is surprisingly violent, especially an attack by drunken Hurons on a group of refugees. This attack includes a shocking scene of an infant torn from her mother's arms and thrown skyward to its death. Although the Hurons are shown in a poor light, the film on the whole, as is the case with Cooper's novel, is sympathetic towards the Native American characters. Uncas is portrayed as a far superior man to Cora's original British suitor. Her being attracted to Uncas is shown to be natural and indeed commonplace. This must have seemed a daring approach for a film made in 1920, a time when interracial romance was considered taboo.
This is a very well produced DVD. The print quality is first class with almost no apparent damage. The colour-tinted images are sharp and clear and some of the scenes are dazzling in their beauty. The film is accompanied by a score which fits in well with the action and adds to the mood of the whole viewing experience.
Lon Chaney is not the star of Tod Browning's Outside the Law (the second of 10 pictures they made together), but he practically steals the film. Browning cast the man of a thousand faces in two roles, as the despicable gangster Black Mike ("a rat, a vulture, and a snake," according to the titles) and as the devoted Chinese servant to a Confucian Chinatown teacher. Priscilla Dean stars as Molly, the daughter of a San Francisco underworld leader lured back to a life of crime by Mike, who frames her father for murder and then plots to double-cross her as well. Hard-bitten kewpie doll Dean underplays her gangster-moll part beautifully, and Chaney's Mike is dastardly and dangerous, a sneering hard case with a scar running down his cheek. Browning pours on the syrup in the film's middle... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Tod Browning DVD Release Date: Released the 27 June 2000 Usually ships within 24 hours
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New York gangs have rarely been as realistically depicted as in this vivid, grungy 1915 melodrama. Aside from its status as one of the earliest gangster pictures, Regeneration is the first feature in the long directorial career of Raoul Walsh (White Heat), whose marvelously energetic and manly adventures brightened Hollywood's Golden Age. The plot is a stock tale of a hood (Rockliffe Fellowes, who has a true mug's face) reformed by a social worker (Anna Q. Nilsson, a silent star with some resemblance to Leelee Sobieski), but Walsh got the grime of the slums into the very grain of the photography. He once explained, "I went down around the waterfront and around the docks and into the saloons and got all kinds of gangster types, people with terrible faces, hiding in doorways."... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Rockliffe Fellowes - William Sheer - Anna Q. Nilsson Director(s): Raoul Walsh DVD Release Date: Released the 27 November 2001 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Wildly romantic, daringly exciting, Michael Mann's film of James Fenimore Cooper's novel created a new babe magnet out of Daniel Day-Lewis, he of the heaving pecs and flowing mane. As Hawkeye, he plays an American settler raised by the Mohicans who is forced to serve as a guide for British adventurism in upstate New York. But the British have been outflanked by the French (and their Indian allies); then British honor is betrayed when a band of renegades assaults them during their retreat. Mann captures the viciousness of this era's hand-to-hand combat in startling battle scenes. But he also invests the film with heartfelt romance, as the feelings swell between Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. The ending is a stunner, a long, nearly wordless sequence of battle and loss. Strong performances... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Michael Mann DVD Release Date: Released the 23 January 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The Man of a Thousand Faces wears his own rugged countenance in this rousing pair of silent melodramas from the early 1920s. Though typically known for his heavily made-up portrayals of monstrous villains and disabled outcasts, Lon Chaney plays the noble leading man in the gorgeously filmed Nomads of the North, adapted from James Oliver Curwood's timeless tale of love and murder on the lush Canadian frontier. Chaney is heroic as he saves his beloved Nanette (Betty Blythe) from a snidely suitor, but he's nearly upstaged by the adorable pets Brimstone and Neela, a black Labrador and brown bear cub (respectively) who survive river rapids, cougars, and the film's climactic (and genuinely dangerous) forest inferno. The Shock finds Chaney in familiar "cripple" mode as an... More Info about this DVD Director(s): David Hartford DVD Release Date: Released the 30 July 2002 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Mary Pickford plays two roles in this film; it is a testament to her phenomenal acting talent that we really see her as two completely different characters. In the title role of Stella Maris, Pickford portrays a lovely young woman, paralyzed from childhood, whose wealthy, aristocratic parents have kept her utterly sheltered from the ugly realities of the outside world. As poor little orphan girl Unity Blake, Pickford is literally unrecognizable.
Make-up, hair, and costumes help achieve this remarkable transformation. Stella Maris is radiantly pretty, with bright eyes and lips and flowing curls, decked out in ruffled white frocks. Unity is painfully plain: sallow-skinned and dull-haired, in an orphan's homespun, shapeless shift. But it is Pickford's extraordinary facility with body... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Marshall Neilan DVD Release Date: Released the 18 April 2000 Usually ships within 24 hours
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