The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-03-21
The "Last of the Mohi- cans" Is a Picture of Real Life, Not a Fancy Picture of Things That Never Were It Is Tragic; See It.

It remained for a Frenchman to provide the most dramatic picture of the massacre of the Americans and British at Fort William Henry, an incident which historians have written as bIemish into the life of the generous hearted and noble French general, Montcalm.
 Maurice Tourneur, who gave to the screen the Blue Bird of Maeter- Hnck and the Treasure Island of R06ert Louis Stevenson, has scored an artistic triumph in his Last of the Aohicans," a triumph so not able that perhaps he has overshot the mark, by passing beyond the dramatic understanding of millions of those who will see the picture.
 Tourneur's picturization of ''The Last of the MohicanS'' was present ed at the PoH Theatre last week, and it plainly was beyond the com prehension of many, who are accus- toned to the dramatic presentation of fights between tough men, gun men and other sorts of fighters, but who are now so many years dis tant from the fear of the savage Indian, which haunted the lives of the pioneers, that they have little conception of those times.
 It was apparent to the most care less observer that a large part of the house thought the massacre overdrawn, and to them the fighting mad a character of unreality-
 The picture carries a love story. It does not, however, produce, the whole of Cooper's historic tale. The events surround and relate to the capture of Fort William Henry, and the massacre of the men and women who were evacuating the fort, under the protection of Mont calm, with the understanding that they were to have safe conduct
 The HuronS fell upon the help less people and killed them by hun dreds.
 Tourneur has achieved a much larger thing than a mere love story, or trihing tale of adventure. He has succeeded in representing, at least to people reasonably familiar with the history or the continent or North America, the terror in which the early settlers lived and had their being.
 This is not a mean or trif1ing achievement, and yet it may be too large a thing for the box office, for the patrons of picture houses, are not as class trained for the large and tragic things of the drama They want simple action, love, marriage and a happy ending. They do not always care for his [ ory, nor for the tragedies which history offers so profusely
 The Last of the Mohicans will jus tlfy the attendance of all Ameri- cans who wish to understand their country, it's beginnings and the events that have made it what it is.
 The action of the play is large, and generous. The scenery is that which marked the neighb orhood of Fort William Henry.
 Yet the portrayal, exaggerated as it may seem to the uniformed, iG I I1.4 itself.
 Fort William Henry, in this time, contained 2.00O souls. Montcalm attacked with 5000 men. Fort Ed ward was 1 miles away, with 4,000 men, but none were sent to Munro. who commanded William Henry.
 The massacre has been described by Israel Putnam, of Connecticut, who gave his name to Putnam Park and to Putnam's Leap, which lies on the Boston Post Road at the entrance to Greenwich proper. speaking of the dreadful scene. twas entirely demolished. The barracks and buildings were a heap of ruins. The cannon, shoes, boots and vessels were all carried away; the smoke and Stench was offensive and suffocating. Innum- erable fragments, human skulls and bones and carcasses half consum- ed were still frying and boiling in the decaying fires. Dead bodies, mangled with sca1ping knives and tomahawks in all the wantonness of Indian barbarity and fierceness were everywhere to be seen. More than a hundred women butchered and shockingly mangled lay upon the ground still weltering in their gore. Devastation, barbarity and horror and horror everywhere ap- peared and the spectacle presented was to diabo1ica1 and awful either to be endured or described. Hun dreds fell victims to the fury of the Red Men"
 Such is the event, such the tragedy, such the dread hour of a by gone time which Tourneur has so adequately depicted. It must be seen for what it is to be understood, or appreciated. It is not fantasy, like The Blue Bird, nor a tale of adventure, like Treas ure Island, nor a simple love story as so many dramas are. It is an epic of another age, an age which was fierce and fearful.
 By all means see ''The Last of the Mohicans." It is worth sec ing.