The Last of the Mohicans (1964)

D. Peter Potinstoff
Colour

Something I’ve rarely touched upon so far is how good an actor Elvis was. Okay, I can see you rolling your eyes and smirking, but let me finish. Clearly he wasn’t allowed to be a great actor, the material just wasn’t there for him to demonstrate that even if he’d had the talent. But often the material isn’t there for him to show himself to be a good actor either, and yet somehow Elvis mostly manages to turn in a good performance. And by good I don’t mean simply adequate, I mean he truly inhabits his character within the context of the world around him. That’s different from creating a fully rounded, living and breathing character – as most Elvis films would have been deeply unsettled by having a fully rounded, living and breathing character in their midst – but in the light and fluffy world that most Elvis movies inhabit, Elvis fills his role with aplomb. He never embarrasses himself, and even when he’s clearly bored by the music, his acting performance retains masses of grace and soul. Elvis was never allowed to be a great actor, but then he was rarely given the material to shine as a truly good actor, yet he nearly always showed himself to be inherently gifted and as a man who could have had a proper career in the cinema if he’d been given the chance.

That’s my really long winded prelude to saying that despite all of that, ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ stinks.

And Elvis is fucking terrible in it!

Even I’m not going to try and defend this one.

Actually casting Elvis as Hawkeye is a fantastic idea. After all Elvis was often reputed to have Native American heritage and he has the skin tone, the eyes and the cheekbones to pull it off. He also has a certain stillness about him on the screen, and stillness is a quality that American movies loved to use for braves and chiefs (seriously, why aren’t there any jittery and nervous Native Americans on the big screen?) In practice though Elvis has no idea what to do with the part and is deeply and obviously uncomfortable within it. I think as a young boy Elvis always wanted to be a cowboy rather than an Indian and it shows in every stilted movement. Many scenes go by with him standing arms crossed in his headdress, looking like one of those old statues – creating a lifeless immobility that is at times so convincing it surprises you when he speaks. His dialogue is no help at all though, it’s supposed to be wise aphorisms in pigeon-English but he actually comes across like a less convincing Yoda: “Speak English, proper, he cannot”. Okay, the character comes more alive in the stunt scenes, but that’s more to do with an enthusiastic stuntman than anything else.

‘Harum Scarum’ and this are the Elvis films that suffer most from being shot entirely within the confines of the studio, with a few leaves and unconvincing shrubs at Paramount unable to replicate the great American wilderness. And the supporting cast of Shelley Fabares (later seen again with Elvis in ‘Spinout’), and Deforest Kelly (looking stunned at the absurdity around him, and this is a man who managed to act like he believed in William Shatner’s toupee) don’t manage to lift things any higher. This is a strange misfiring film, where everything goes wrong and one can only be amazed that every copy of it wasn’t dramatically hurled off some waterfall in North Carolina.