The Last of the Mohicans (BBC 1971)

[silverwhistle]

This has recently been released on DVD (R1), and I've been enjoying catching up with it again! OK, it's a bit stagey, with white actors playing the Indians (Philip Madoc as Magua, John Abineri as Chingachgook), but I highly recommend it. I was about 5 or 6 when I first saw it (and had a crush on poor Cora).

It's far closer to the book than all the cinema versions, gets the character pairings right, and includes all the background details: Cora's mixed-race grandmother, Duncan being a Virginian of Scots parentage, & c.

[El Tel]

Yeah I remember this one. Phillip Madoc was very scary. You say it is closer to the book than the films but like the films there seem to be gratuitous attempts to make the British Army appear stupid. I remember a redcoat patrol being wiped out. Doesn't appear in the book if I recall it aright. And in these adaptations you never hear about the Ranger or Light Infantry companies. I mean, the British won. And then the Americans only won their war of independence after a long struggle and after the French, Spanish and Dutch joined them as allies. Go to hell, Mel Gibson.



Possibly I'm paranoid but any portrayal of the armed forces by the media in general and the BBC in particular has to be treated warily.



So there.