The Unforgiven
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Movie Reviews of The Unforgiven
Movie Review: good old western
Summary: 4 Stars
I like old westerns and I got this because Audie Murphy was in it
It's a good western
Movie Review: Forbidden blood, forbidden love
Summary: 3 Stars
Tempers reach a fever pitch and a post-Civil War Texas community threatens to explode when people begin to suspect the adopted daughter of a respected family is a Kiowa Indian.
John Huston directed THE UNFORGIVEN in 1960, one of the last of the `message' westerns of that era which includes such notables as BROKEN ARROW (message = practice racial tolerance) and HIGH NOON (message = McCarthyism is bad.) I'm not a big fan of message westerns. Too often the sermon drowns out the story. As they used to say, if I want a message I'll call Western Union.
Still, Huston was one of the smartest directors around and the cast - Audrey Hepburn, Burt Lancaster, Lillian Gish, and Audie Murphy - are all first-rate.
Audrey Hepburn, the luminous Audrey Hepburn, plays the young woman was a foundling and now is the subject of an increasingly acrimonious dispute over her pedigree. Gish plays the foster mother and Lancaster and Murphy the Kiowa-hating half-brothers. Murphy a little top heavy with hate, Lancaster a little light in the keel when called on to remember the brother part. They aren't really kin, one coyly tells the other early on.
The first half of THE UNFORGIVEN is pretty interesting. There's a wild, one-eyed wraith, dressed in torn and faded Confederate gray, claiming to be the `sword of God' and warning any and all of Hepburn's true heritage. A young John Saxon plays a half-breed wrangler named Portugal who... well, rather mysteriously disappears rather early on. It has nothing to do with the plot per se, it's just that his character suddenly just isn't in the movie anymore. And that's the rub. Huston builds and maintains an intriguing story up until the last act, which is nothing more than a protracted shoot-`em-up that ends with survivors locking hands and singing Kumbaiyah. Huston usually tacks a brilliant ending onto his movies, and the one here is lame by anyone's standards. I think I know why this is so.
According to a reliable internet source THE UNFORGIVEN was attended by more than its share of misfortune leading to tragedy. Hepburn, pregnant during filming, was seriously injured in a horse riding accident between scenes. She was hospitalized, returned in a neck brace, and after the movie was completed ultimately miscarried the baby. Director John Huston blamed himself for the accident and reportedly hated this movie. Huston's disdain is, I think, apparent. How else to explain an interesting set-up followed by one of the weakest last acts he ever filmed? My guess is that somewhere along the line Huston simply lost interest in the movie, and he wrapped it up in a tried and true and uninspirited and insipid manner.
THE UNFORGIVEN is okay, not great and not always really very good. One of Huston's lesser efforts.
Movie Review: Great Actors, Strange, Eerie Movie
Summary: 3 Stars
There's an odd aura about this flick. Im not sure how to rate it. The actors I love: Audrey Hepburn, Burt Lancaster, Doug McClure, Audie Murphy, Lillian Gish, on and on. Directed by John Huston?! Whew! What else can you ask for?
The story plays like an allegory. The wild west, ranchers vs. Indians(Native Americans) with great vitriol between the groups, a spooky spectre of a soldier, and an ugly mystery, all threatening to explode. Brothers led by the strong, every capeable Lancaster(isn't he always?) hold up with piano playing mom(Gish) and free and ever loving sister(Hepburn) in an adobe home/mini-fortress. The question arises is the sister "red"? And if she is, that's unforgivable by the whites, and the tribe of Kiowas want her back at any cost.
The photography and setting are fantastic. Hepburn rides, glides and floats gracefully across the screen. Of course, she is miscast as other reviewers have stated, that's Hollywood in those days, but she is so appealing as a young woman caught as the center of a storm.
They try to show the Amercian Indians in a more positive light as least at the start, but it ends up with them yelling and circling the embattled settlers as usual and flipping off the back of their horses as they're shot dead by each and every family member.
The action scenes are well done; however, it's a gruesome story with racism, murder, a hanging, and lots of killing especially near the end.
Strange notes: A pregnant Audrey Hepburn was seriously injured after being thrown from a horse; hospitalized for 6 weeks, she had to wear a brace for further filming, and miscarried 2 months later. Huston felt terrible about it, totally disliked this film, but she never blamed him for it. WWII hero Audie Murphy nearly drown after capsizing in a boat; he was rescued by a woman journalist. Lancaster and Huston took Ms. Gish out to teach her how to shoot; she not only was quicker than the manly men but a better shot to boot- having been taught years earlier by a gunslinger.
Movie Review: For all God-fearing white Christians
Summary: 3 Stars
Audrey Hepburn is a beautiful sleek-haired Injun girl raised by a white family. Only her mother knows her true origins, the rest believe her to be white. When the truth comes out, her Injun brethren seek to reclaim her, and the white community want to give her to them. Only her family stand by her. The Injuns come, flying a peace flag. Audrey says she wants to go to them, 'my people'. So Burt Lancaster shoots one of them.As Audrey points out, there is now no option but war.
The Injuns attack. Their strategy is to ride round and round in a big circle waiting to get shot. Audrey, at first, refuses to shoot her own people, but ultimately she has no choice. She seems to be in some pain.
During an interlude in the battle, Burt, (her non-blood brother, kisses Audrey, long and hard on the lips. There were hints at a sexual attraction between Audrey and Burt Lancaster (her white brother) at the beginning of the film, but it seems that only after he knows the truth, does his desire rise into consciousness. Then, Audrey's blood brother enters the house, unarmed and walking towards her, so Audrey shoots him. The Injuns are defeated, all fifty of them, wiped out by two brothers, an old woman, and Audrey Hepburn, all because of Burt's lust for the dark-skinned beauty. On the other hand, the Injuns' tactics were somewhat foolish, so perhaps they are to blame for their own defeat.
A flock of birds fly across a clear sky as the family emerge from their house, at peace after their victory.
I've always had a problem with westerns because of the genocidal aspect to the genre, butit was only after the credits that I realised this was supposed to be an anti-racist film.
The three stars are because I enjoyed it. Great acting and dialogue, interesting camerawork. But Hollywood is a very strange place. As the Injuns used to say (before they were shot), 'White man speak with forked tongue'.
Movie Review: Almost a Great Western
Summary: 3 Stars
But for a weak ending The Unforgiven would be up there with the Searchers, Shane, Gunfight at the OK Corral and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence as one of the greatest westerns ever made. Sorry I forgot to include the Magnificent Seven.
This is a dark film and for it's time (1960) very bold. It is a film about racism. Burt Lancaster plays the head of pioneer family who with his mother. Lilian Gish, and his brothers Audie Murphy and Doug McClure live a sod roofed house, shack would never the mark, and ranch cattle. The problem is that the brothers have an adopted sister, Audrey Hepburn, whose family were killed by the Indians. It is clear that Lancaster and Hepburn have feelings for each other, which may not quite be incest but are near enough to make the viewer uneasy.
However the real problems come when a crazed figure from the past played by John Wiseman, reveals that Hepburn is in fact not from a White family killed by the Indians, but from an Indian family killed by the Whites. The racist feelings are so strong that Audie Murphy leaves the family in disgust. The family's neighbour and partner (Charles Bickford) also turns his back on them. Then the Indians (Kiowas) turn up and demand that Hepburn is returned them.
What makes this film stand out are it's dark themes and it's realism. Unlike most Westerns, in this film you do get the feel of how isolated a Texas ranch was and the main features of the landscape are dust, dust and more dust.
John Huston who can normally do no wrong may be unforgiven for the ending, which I will not reveal but this is still a film worth watching and for 1960, pretty brave.