Search - Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans on DVD

The Early American Frontier . . . . . from Canada

Robert Huggins | Suburban Philadelphia, PA United States | 05/30/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In the wake of Disney's success with the limited series "Davy Crockett," television producers scrambled to develop series using the early American frontier as a backdrop. Series like "The Adventures of Jim Bowie" and "Northwest Passage" (which co-starred Buddy Ebsen from the "Davy Crockett" series) were developed. Disney even returned to the era with another limited series "Swamp Fox," starring Leslie Nielsen. From Canada came "Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans" starring John Hart (who had replaced Clayton Moore as "The Lone Ranger" for a while during a salary dispute) as "Hawkeye" and Lon Chaney, Jr. as "Chingachgook." The original pilot for the series (included on this DVD set) was filmed in Hollywood, but all of the other episodes in this single season show (39 episodes in total) were filmed in Pickering, Ontario, Canada under the auspices of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Although the stories are fictional, "Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans" is an entertaining view and the half-hour format works to the series' advantage. Outside of Hart and Chaney and a few American actors in the pilot episode (most notably Michael Ansara), American audiences will probably not recognize many faces among the Canadian casts, save for James "Scotty" Doohan who appears as both a settler and an Indian! Both of Doohan's appearances are included in this set.

This two-DVD set from Timeless Media includes 10 episodes from the series including the pilot episode "Hawkeye's Homecoming" and, while it's unlikely that these episodes have been restored, the episodes are fairly clean looking, free of defects for the most part. There is one episode that is of lesser visual quality and two of the episodes are missing end credits. Unfortunately, all of the episodes are missing their opening title sequence; instead, Timeless plays it once at the beginning of each disc, prior to the episode selection menu.

There are several other companies offering these same episodes, notably Alpha Video and Platinum Disc Corporation. If you already own those DVDs, this set will be redundant so be sure to check the episode listings. Here is a listing of the episodes included:

Disc 1
1. Hawkeye's Homecoming
2. The Threat
3. The Delaware Hoax
4. The Medicine Man
5. The Search

Disc 2
1. Snake Tattoo
2. False Witness
3. The Scapegoat
4. The Way Station
5. The Promised Valley

All in all, "Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans" is an entertaining series from the late 1950s that will appeal to classic television fans and those who enjoy stories from the early American era.
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