Cooper’s cast in The Last of the Mohicans act out their personal dramas in the woods around a Lake George renamed Horicon. The action flows from the French and Indians defeat of the British and Colonials at Fort William Henry. The author’s basic crew are a select bunch. Father and son last-of-their tribe Indians, a legendary woodsman and a vibrant young woman of mixed racial heritage stand out.  That the young Indian, Uncas, and the young avatar of diversity, Cora, are denied coupling and fated to die, tells us something about their times.

 The sparks that fly between Uncas and Cora are the real deal, and if not for the need to sacrifice the would-be lovers to the unyielding societal rules of the day and kill them off before consummation can occur, they would be thrashing around on the pine needles at every break in the fighting.

The relationship of Chingachgook and Hawkeye, elevated to mythic level and presaging future racial harmony, is not the stuff of which male-female movie fireworks are constructed by filmmakers concerned with return on investment. Hence movie Hawkeye hunkers less to with his spiritual brother Chingachgook than with Madeleine Stowe, as Alice, the convenient hottie that any red-blooded male would gladly pursue. Leave spiritual bonding to the bookworms.

So, with my most profound apologies to James Fenimore, who might be relieved to discover his ill-starred, would-be lovers have been given a second chance in the form of two of my own invented characters, come see what my guys make of it.