Watch Drums Along the Mohawk For Free

What a beautiful movie!

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Lana Borst, the daughter of a wealthy family, marries a young farmer named Gilbert Martin and goes to live on his small farm on the frontier. At first Lana, who is accustomed to living in luxury, hates frontier life, but her love for Gilbert is strong enough to help her adjust, and she settles down to their life together until their farm is destroyed by an Indian raiding party. The Martins are forced to accept work on the farm of a wealthy neighbour, the widowed Mrs. McKlennar, and during a brief period of peace they are able to rebuild their farm and start a family. When war returns to the area, Gilbert joins a local militia and fights bravely for his country. Eventually, facing a major attack by Indians and a few renegade white men, the settlers are forced to take refuge in a nearby fort. Just when it seems that the fort will be overrun, American soldiers come to the rescue, and all ends happily with the Stars and Stripes proudly flying.That could easily be the plot of a standard Western, no doubt directed by John Ford. "Drums along the Mohawk", however, is what might be called an Eastern Western, that is to say a standard Western shifted two thousand miles to the east and a hundred years back in time. The above story takes place not in the Texas or the Utah or the South Dakota of the 1870s but in upstate New York during the 1770s, in fact against the background of the American War of Independence. (It is, however, nevertheless directed by John Ford).Now anyone with any historical knowledge will be aware that the American War of Independence was so called because the Americans were fighting for independence from Britain, but you would not realise that from this film, which does not feature a single British character. There are a few villainous Tories (in the sense of pro-British American Loyalists, not members of the British Conservative Party), but the main villains are the Indians. The reason doubtless lies in the year the film was made, 1939. With war looming, Ford was doubtless uncomfortably aware that an anti-British movie could have been interpreted as pro-isolationist or, worse, pro-Nazi. Not all Americans in 1939 believed that they could remain permanently neutral if war came to Europe, and Ford might have been unwilling to offend citizens of a country alongside whose forces American troops might soon be fighting.Seen from 2016 as opposed to 1939, however, Ford's treatment of the Indians looks far more offensive than any treatment of colonial-era Britons could ever have been. (Indeed, it is a lot more offensive than his treatment of Indians in some of his later Westerns from the forties, fifties and sixties). The white settlers frequently refer to them by such choice epithets as "pagans", "savages" and "brutes", and it is clear that we are meant to take these descriptions as objective statements of fact, not as racist insults, because that is exactly how the Native Americans are portrayed- brutal, savage, and motivated only by bloodlust. There is no attempt to analyse why the Indians of this period should have harboured such enmity towards the whites or why they might have favoured the British rather than the Revolutionaries, but any American viewers wanting an answer to these questions ought to read their own Declaration of Independence, which makes it quite clear that the sentiment "all men are created equal" did not extend to the non-white races.The only "good Indian" is Chief Blue Back, a Christian convert who has partially adopted the white man's ways and learnt to speak English after a fashion and who sides with the Revolutionaries. Ford doubtless intended us to see Blue Back as sympathetic, but from a modern point of view he looks more like a patronising caricature. A real Blue Back would probably have been more pathetic than sympathetic, a lonely, isolated figure cut off from his own people and their culture by his religious conversion and patronised, but never treated as an equal, by the whites among whom he lived.The acting is not particularly distinguished. Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert in the two leading roles are adequate, but in neither case is this their finest hour. The supporting characters, however, tend towards the one-dimensional, not only Blue Back but also Arthur Shields' garrulous clergyman and the irritatingly formidable-but lovable Mrs. McKlennar. (Edna May Oliver seemed to specialise in irritatingly formidable-but-lovable old ladies; she even managed to portray Lady Catherine de Burgh as such in "Pride and Prejudice" the following year). The film's one saving grace is its visual attractiveness; it was Ford's first colour film at a time when most Westerns were made in black-and-white. 1939 was the year in which Ford directed one of the great Westerns of all time, "Stagecoach", but "Drums along the Mohawk" is in nothing like the same class. 5/10

Ford left out an important topic about the American Revolution in the Mohawk Valley. The topic being that it was a theater of extreme neighbor on neighbor violence. Colonial Patriots, Loyalists and Iroquois all who once lived together in peace were split because of politics. The patriots were so harsh on the Loyalist about their beliefs to a point were many Loyalists left the valley for Canada or England. The Iroquois original wanted no part in the conflict. I do believe that the word vengeance for what the Patriots put the loyalists through can be valid. I think British officials and John Johnson wanted to assign those loyal to the crown who knew and lived in the area to attack the Patriots. Many of the New York Loyalist and Iroquois enlisted were part of the Kings Royal Regiment of New York, and Butlers Rangers. I mostly believe that it was the British objective to lay waste to the valley for two reasons. One, The Mohawk valley was a major food source for the Continental Army up until after the Sullivan Expedition of 1779. Two, St. Ledger wanted to provide a diversion to help Burgoyne at Saratoga. We do not see the worst of it because the film goes from 1777 to early 1779. From 1780 to the end of the war there were a lot more raids with smaller raiding parties containing mostly of Loyalists from the area. By the end of the war the valley was practically deserted with lots of destroyed homesteads and farms. Some settlements and small villages were wiped from the face of the earth like Andrustown. Only less than a 1000 out of about 7000 residents remained. Even though other frontier communities faced the same events like Cobleskill, and Cherry Valley, the devastation according to accounts was not as near as what it was in the Mohawk Valley. Repeated battles and raids made the Mohawk Valley the most bloodiest and dangerous place during the War for Independence. It took the lives of many innocent Patriots, Loyalist, and Iroquois. I do like the film and Ford did a good job showing frontier life and a good portrayal of the 1778 attack.

Drum along the Mohawk was John Fords first film that he used Technicolor in. The scenery and the colors in the film were great to see. The emotions on Lana and Gilbert Martins face were good. Especially in the scene where the Indians burn their house down. As they are getting ready to leave the camera focuses back on the house being burnt and then right to their faces and you can tell that they knew they lost everything. The sounds of the gun shots and canon being let off during the fight between the town and the Indians was a great scene to see and hear. You could tell the Indians were coming cause they would chant or you would see smoke from them burning houses down. In the end the town won by the help that Gil went to get.

The film was fun to watch: especially the slapping of women, pathetic but funny Indians, praying for a good day of Tory and Indian killing, how liquor makes you quicker (ooops, no it didn't), etc. One would like to think we were on the right side in the Indian Wars, but we weren't. Like many treaties that were to come, "we the people" broke many promises to the original Americans. A good example of propaganda in the form of film. I have never seen a more girly pioneer woman in Colbert's characterization. Jeez, look at her run as she watches Gil march away. And then the whole hysterical fit when Blue Back arrives. And did you notice what looks like a plastic nock on the arrow that hits the tree as Gil is running to Fort Dayton! Not a big deal, but funny to see the master Ford's misattention to detail. Otherwise it's a great film!