Books to Films: Drums Along the Mohawk, Making History Feel Real

Moving on from Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes...

This list examines movies based on books. The books are chosen from A-Z List 2. 

Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter Edmonds was a bestseller. Its movie was made three years later. 

The movie raises a great many book-to-movie issues that I will address in many of these posts: 

Is the movie as complex as the book?  

The movie here was criticized at its release for lacking the depth of the book. Generally this is an issue that I am willing to give a pass on, not because I think movies can't be deep but because I think they are deep in different ways from books. 

Should the movie focus on a few characters or take the epic approach?

Drums Along the Mohawk sticks to a limited perspective. Not only does it remain focused on Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert's characters, it sticks to the homefront, what is happening to New York settlers in the Mohawk valley during the Revolutionary War. 

Is it accurate? is a problem that haunts all historical films. 

For this post, a separate related problem rears its head: 

Does it feel accurate? 

I confess, I approached the movie with a degree of skepticism. Colonial Revivalism (end of the nineteenth century) had produced a great many architecture changes as well as numerous dioramas at museums and theme parks using the Precious Moments Dolls' cutesiness version of history; that cutesiness was still going strong in 1939. 

The opening scene of Drums Along the Mohawk didn't help. Although it shows a wedding taking place accurately in a home rather than a church, Claudette Colbert's Vegas-meets-Civil-War wedding dress made me gasp.

However...other than the shiny wedding grown, the movie avoids cutesiness. Not only are some of the violent scenes surprisingly graphic, everything is kind of messy and dirty. Grime may not be the best indicator of authenticity but it helps (I feel the same way about classic police procedurals versus brand spanking new ones. I take Blue Bloods more seriously than the final years of Law & Order, precisely because Danny Reagan's desk is kind of a mess.) 

In addition to the mess, the dialog and interactions emphasize the impact of war on everyday life. My favorite scene is the preacher who uses the pulpit to denounce a specific neighbor's behavior, discuss a specific neighbor's medical condition, preach politics, and do the equivalent of a commercial. 

Between Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert, I found Colbert's performance far more inviting. She delivers feminine toughness with body language and a low, husky voice. However, Fonda has an impressive scene where he delivers a nearly three to four minute monologue about what he saw during a battle. It is quite modern in tone yet at the same time captures the reality of the historical situation.

The movie feels like it is trying to pay tribute to the book and the time period it covers, a point that will come up again and again: Did the producers even read the book?! When they do--when they at least appear to care about what they read--I generally applaud their efforts, even when I don't entirely agree with their interpretations.