The Deerslayer | |
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Directed by | Kurt Neumann |
Screenplay by | Carroll Young Kurt Neumann Dalton Trumbo (uncredited) |
Based on | The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper |
Produced by | Kurt Neumann |
Starring | Lex Barker Rita Moreno Forrest Tucker Cathy O'Donnell Jay C. Flippen Carlos Rivas |
Cinematography | Karl Struss |
Edited by | Jodie Copelan |
Music by | Paul Sawtell Bert Shefter |
Production company | |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 78 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $200,000 [1] |
Box office | $2 million (est) [1] |
The Deerslayer is a 1957 American Western film in CinemaScope and Color by De Luxe, directed by Kurt Neumann and written by Carroll Young, Neumann and an uncredited Dalton Trumbo. The film stars Lex Barker, Rita Moreno, Forrest Tucker, Cathy O'Donnell, Jay C. Flippen and Carlos Rivas. It is based on the 1841 novel The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper. [2] [3] [4] The film was released on September 10, 1957 by 20th Century-Fox.
Frontiersman Deerslayer and his Mohican blood brother Chingachgook are attacked by a scout for a Huron war party. Dispatching the Huron, they hear war cries from the river and help white trader Harry March, who is being chased by the war party in canoes. Deerslayer and Chingachgook, cannot understand why the Hurons have gone on the warpath so far west of the white settlements. Harry tells them that he is making for a floating fort moored in the middle of Lake Otsego, on which old Tom Hutter and his two daughters, Judith and Hetty, live. Harry needs the help of Deerslayer and Chingachgook to deliver the girls to safety in Albany. When they arrive at the fort, Deerslayer and Chingachgook offer their help because a band of Hurons is coming down the river, but they are shunned by Tom, who knows why the Hurons are about to attack but is also trying to hide a sinister secret.
Cat Ballou is a 1965 American western comedy film starring Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin, who won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual role. The story involves a woman who hires a notorious gunman to protect her father's ranch, and later to avenge his murder, only to find that the gunman is not what she expected. The supporting cast features Tom Nardini, Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman, and Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye, who together perform the film's theme song, and who appear throughout the film in the form of travelling minstrels or troubadours as a kind of musical Greek chorus and framing device.
The year 1957 in film involved some significant events. The Bridge on the River Kwai topped the year's box office in North America, France, and Germany, and won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Alexander Crichlow Barker Jr., known as Lex Barker, was an American actor. He was known for playing Tarzan for RKO Pictures between 1949 and 1953, and portraying leading characters from Karl May's novels, notably as Old Shatterhand in a film series by the West German studio Rialto Film. At the height of his fame, he was one of the most popular actors in German-speaking cinema, and received Bambi Award and Bravo Otto nominations for the honor.
The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is an 1826 historical romance novel by James Fenimore Cooper. It is the second book of the Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy and the best known to contemporary audiences. The Pathfinder, published 14 years later in 1840, is its sequel; its prequel, The Deerslayer, was published a year after The Pathfinder. The Last of the Mohicans is set in 1757, during the French and Indian War, when France and Great Britain battled for control of North America. During this war, both the French and the British used Native American allies, but the French were particularly dependent on Indigenous forces since they were outnumbered in the Northeast frontier areas by the British. Specifically, the events of the novel are set immediately before, during, and after the Siege of Fort William Henry.
Otsego Lake is a 4,046-acre (16.37 km2) lake located in Otsego County in the U.S. state of New York. It is the source of the Susquehanna River and largest lake in Otsego County. The Village of Cooperstown is located at the lake's southern end. Glimmerglass State Park is located on the lake's northeastern shore, and includes Hyde Hall, a large mansion constructed in 1817, that overlooks the lake. The Glimmerglass Opera, opened in June 1987, is located on the western shore.
Forrest Meredith Tucker was an American actor in both movies and television who appeared in nearly a hundred films. Tucker worked as a vaudeville straight man at the age of fifteen. A mentor provided funds and contacts for a trip to California, where party hostess Cobina Wright persuaded guest Wesley Ruggles to give Tucker a screen test because of Tucker's photogenic good looks, thick wavy hair and height of six feet, five inches.
John Constantine Flippen Jr. was an American character actor who often played crusty sergeants, police officers or weary criminals in many 1940s and 1950s pictures, particularly in film noir. Before his motion-picture career he was a leading vaudeville comedian and master of ceremonies.
The King and I is a 1956 American musical film made by 20th Century-Fox, directed by Walter Lang and produced by Charles Brackett and Darryl F. Zanuck. The screenplay by Ernest Lehman is based on the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, which is itself based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon. That novel in turn was based on memoirs written by Anna Leonowens, who became school teacher to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s. Leonowens' stories were autobiographical, although various elements of them have been called into question. The film stars Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner.
Ned Romero was an American actor and opera singer who appeared in television and film.
The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path was James Fenimore Cooper's fifth and last novel published in 1841 in his Leatherstocking Tales. Its 1740–1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales, Natty Bumppo. The novel's setting on Otsego Lake in central, upstate New York, is the same as that of The Pioneers, the first of the Leatherstocking Tales to be published (1823). The Deerslayer is considered to be the prequel to the rest of the series. Fenimore Cooper begins his work by relating the astonishing advance of civilization in New York State, which is the setting of four of his five Leatherstocking Tales.
Two Flags West is a 1950 Western drama set during the American Civil War, directed by Robert Wise and starring Joseph Cotten, Jeff Chandler, Linda Darnell, and Cornel Wilde. The opening credits contain the following statement:
On December 8th, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a Special Proclamation, whereby Confederate Prisoners of War might gain their freedom, provided they would join the Union Army to defend the frontier West against the Indians.
Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo is a fictional character and the protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's pentalogy of novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales. He appears throughout the series as an archetypal American ranger, and has been portrayed many times in a variety of media in popular culture.
The Last of the Mohicans is the feature-length second part of the 1920 German silent Western film Lederstrumpf (Leatherstocking) directed by Arthur Wellin and featuring Bela Lugosi and Emil Mamalock. Bela Lugosi played the Indian Chingachgook, one of his most unusual roles, and Emil Mamalock played Hawkeye, the Deerslayer. It is based on James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel of the same name. The first part is The Deerslayer and Chingachgook.
Leatherstocking is a 1924 American silent Western film serial directed by George B. Seitz.
7th Cavalry is a 1956 American Western film directed by Joseph H. Lewis based on a story, "A Horse for Mrs. Custer", by Glendon Swarthout set after the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Filmed in Mexico, the picture stars Randolph Scott and Barbara Hale.
Chingachgook, die große Schlange is an East German Western film. It was released in 1967, and sold 5,077,070 tickets. The title translates to Chingachgook, the Great Serpent, and starred Gojko Mitić as Chingachgook.
The Wild Blue Yonder is a 1951 war film directed by Allan Dwan. The film stars Wendell Corey, Vera Ralston, Forrest Tucker and Phil Harris. Wild Blue Yonder deals with the Boeing B-29 Superfortress air raids on Japan during World War II.
Wanda McKay was an American actress and model.
Carlos Rivas was an American actor, best remembered as Lun Tha in The King and I (1956), Dirty Bob in True Grit (1969), and Hernandez in Topaz (1969).
The Lone Rider Rides On is a 1941 American western film directed by Sam Newfield and written by Joseph O'Donnell. The film stars George Houston as the Lone Rider and Al St. John as his sidekick "Fuzzy" Jones, with Hillary Brooke, Karl Hackett, Lee Powell and Forrest Taylor. The film was released on January 10, 1941, by Producers Releasing Corporation.