The Song of Hiawatha between the original stories, as "reshaped by Schoolcraft," and the episodes in the poem are but superficial, and Longfellow omits important details essential to Ojibwe narrative construction, characterization, and theme. This is the case even with "Hiawatha’s Fishing," the episode closest to its source. Some important parts of the poem were more or less Longfellow's invention from fragments or his imagination. "The courtship of Hiawatha and Minnehaha, the least 'Indian' of any of the events in "Hiawatha", has come for many readers to stand as the typical American Indian tale." Also, "in exercising the function of selecting incidents to make
Hiawatha (1952 film) the Longfellow classic." Assigning 2 stars (out of 5), "The Motion Picture Guide" stated that "Edwards is cast as the title character in this family version of the classic Longfellow poem" and ultimately described it as "[A]n entertaining film for kids that masks its theme in a flurry of arrows and romance." Among British references, Leslie Halliwell, in his "Film Guide", gave no stars (Halliwell's top rating is 4), dismissing it as a "[M]uddled actioner which has little to do with Longfellow's poem." Hiawatha (1952 film) Hiawatha is a 1952 American film based on the 1855 epic poem "The Song