Hiawatha (1952 film) Hiawatha (1952 film) Hiawatha is a 1952 American film based on the 1855 epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, centering on Native Americans in pre-Columbian times. Directed by Kurt Neumann, with stars Vincent Edwards and Yvette Dugay, it became the final feature produced by the low-budget Monogram Pictures, a mainstay of Hollywood's Poverty Row. Hiawatha, a member of the Ojibway tribe, is on a peace mission to the Dakotah tribe. He meets and falls in love with Minnehaha. The romance is obstructed by a threatened war between the two tribes, instigated by a hot-headed Ojibway tribe
Hiawatha (1952 film) "Hiawatha" resumed production, with Broidy quoted as explaining that "the avalanche of editorial comment which greeted our announcement convinced us unquestionably that the American public would not be dupes for any Communist line, and that our "Hiawatha" picture could only serve the highest ends of education and entertainment". Contrary to Broidy's statement that the "Hiawatha" screenplay was "written by a scenarist whose Americanism is unquestioned", film and television historian Paul Mavis, who devotes a considerable portion of his "DVD Talk" review of "Hiawatha" to this controversial aspect of the film, posits that the name of the screenwriter, Arthur Strawn was,