I've recently finished watching all available episodes of the 1958-1959 series Northwest Passage. A quick Google search doesn't reveal much on the production of this show. Starring Keith Larsen as Major Roberts, the series purports to tell the exploits of the Rogers' Rangers during the French and Indian War (albeit a heavily fictionalized retelling. And when I say heavy...).
Though Keith Larsen doesn't seem to have had much of a noticeable career following this role, I can't help but wonder when I read that he stared in something called Women of the Prehistoric Planet... His co-star in Northwest Passage was non other than Buddy Ebson of Beverly Hillbillies fame.
The series, like the movie that came out in 1940, is based on Kenneth Robert's book of the same title. Though I haven't personally read it yet, author Howard H. Peckham warns: "Kenneth Roberts account of [Robert Rogers] in Northwest Passage must be read with great caution." Peckham, Pontiac and the Indian Uprising, forward by John C. Dann, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1994 [1947], p. 58.
For anyone interested in learning more about Robert Rogers and his men, I strongly suggest Stephen Brumwell's excellent book White Savage: A True Story of War, Savagery And Vengeance in Colonial America.
So, what do I have to say about this stinker? Northwest Passage is very much a product of the 1950's with its cheesy plot lines, cheesy jokes, and apparent total lack of remorse of its characters after they basically cause the small-scale genocide of a native village (Though to be fair, neither did they in real life when they wiped out the Abénaki village of St. Francis. However, I maintain that the audience was not meant to feel pity and in fact is meant to cheer for the "heroes" who are even shown slaying women and children. A very disturbing scene for today's standards when the whole affair is immediately downplayed by a cheesy joke to end the episode).
The production value was great for the period, but little to no research was put into it. I am very much surprised that no one has yet tried to do a remake of Roger's life for the silver screen or even a TV series for the likes of HBO or Bravo... Then again, the man can hardly be considered an American Hero as Northwest Passage attempts to do. Rogers did, after all, end up siding with the British during the American Revolution.
So in true snarktastic tradition, here is what I've learned from watching Northwest Passage*:
- Roger's Rangers tended to be just three guys in green buckskins with fringes.
- Natives wore funny looking wigs held on by a band.
- Speaking of which, natives looked suspiciously like white guys in bad skin makeup.
- French-Canadians all sounded like they were from Paris.
- People dressed like cowboys, Stetson hats and all (Despite being set in the 1750's!!!!).
- Contrary to his portraits, Amherst was a white-wig wearing old wrinkly guy.
- The French (Militia?) wore black coats with Scottish-looking bonnets.
- Montréal apparently had castles from Loire.
- The direct route to Québec from Montréal apparently went through Crown Point.
- Détroit was apparently the far western edge of New France.
- A bump on the knee would give you blood poisoning.
- A knife thrown into your shoulder-blade will kill you. Always.
- Canoes were very easy to sabotage: they were like tissue paper.
- Suspicious bird noises are always to be ignored (even when a character says: "Funny sounding bird! Hope it's not the enemy!")
- All women dressed like they were from Little House on the Prairie.
- The French army dressed like American Revolutionaries
- Robert Rogers was pretty chill unlike the period accounts of being a drunk badass.
- Using native medicine makes you a witch and earns you the scorn of little girls.
- Case in point, little girls are horrid little bitches.
- The prop department was too cheap to create wampum belts so they came up with "pledge sticks" (and even then they didn't bother to decorate these plain sticks...)
- The lake Champlain/Richelieu river system is apparently found on the edge of the Rockies.
- Bowie knifes were invented much, much earlier.
- Did I mention cowboy hats? Cowboy hats everywhere?
- An Indian with blue eyes automatically meant he was someone's captured son, not a métis.
- Crown point was made out of wood.
- Crown point was smaller than fort St-Frédéric.
- Musket shots sound like cannons.
- People were fragile back then: they got knocked out with barely a punch.
- Apparently period rowboats had motor hitches.
- Navajo blankets were all the rage.
- The St. Francis massacre apparently wasn't a big thing, having been only alluded to once.
- Memorable quote: "I need him alive, for hanging!"
- Montréal was apparently bombarded and destroyed like Québec.
- Most Frenchmen enjoyed being conquered.
- Today's citadelle in Québec existed in 1759.
- French-Canadians ate snails.
- French women wore pants.
- Native women all looked like skimpy Disney Pocahontases.
- Indian chiefs wore South-American headdresses.
- Each episode must end with a cheesy joke. No exception. Even after slaughtering a native village.
- Only white Indians are good Indians (aka white people raised as Indians).
- Again, cowboy hats... everywhere.
*A part of this review was first made by me on the IMDB message board linked to this series.
