The Unforgiven (1960)

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Audrey Hepburn always brings a great amount of charisma to each role she plays. But with The Unforgiven, not to be mistaken with the classic western 'Unforgiven', she's never given enough good material to work with. The film focuses on a few families on the frontier who struggle to agree on much, and hell breaks lose when one of their own is murdered. The Rawlins family suspects the Zachary family after hearing their step daughter may have been an Indian child taken at an early age. The premise sounds a bit ridiculous but ends up being pretty dull.Back in the day, certain films called for over-the-top acting but it's highlighted in this movie. Both of the mothers stand out as having way too many 'give me a break' moments. They exaggerate the significance of each others involvement with the Indians. Racism is clearly present throughout the film and I wish the resolution would have meant more. By the time the Natives and the frontier families end up fighting, I didn't get the sense that they really cared about getting their daughter back. I wished I had seen more character development from the Native American side of things.With that said, the bright spot of the movie lies with the man who didn't have much development at all, Abe Kelsey. The mysterious filled man had some of the great lines and also had one of the more memorable faces in any western I have seen in a long time. The action scenes are also actually well done for it's time. The film was made over 50 years ago, and it looks believable. Hepburn gets completely lost in the shuffle here though. She ends up being just the object each side is fighting for. I didn't feel anything for her when she would break down. Where as in a film like The Children's Hour, the best scenes were ones that involved Hepburn emotionally devastated. She is usually great at portraying realistic emotion. So all in all, with a more polished script and interesting characters this would have been a decent film.+Abe Kelsey +Action is believable -Hepburn lost in the shuffle -Script is jumpy, and the film loses focus -Mother characters were over-dramatic-Didn't care for the characters 5.5/10

The word on the set is that John Huston, disillusioned at the way The Red Badge Of Courage was mauled by the studio more or less threw in the towel and was content thereafter to phone it in. Stories of him reading a newspaper on set and allowing his assistants to run the show abound and it is undeniable that he never made a half-decent film post-Courage. He had a penchant for assembling several heavy hitters, putting them in an under-written off-the-wall screenplay and snatching a suet pudding from the jaws of a soufflé. He did it with Beat The Devil and damned if he doesn't do it here as well. There's something of Duel In The Sun about The Unforgiven in that both turn a team of top talent loose on turgid screenplays. We wait a long time for the revelation that Audrey Hepburn is not, as she and the audience supposed, white, but a half- breed 'stolen' from the Kiawa tribe some twenty years previously. Rather sportingly the Kiawas wait the same twenty years before claiming her as one of their own. So much for realism. It's hard to work up much of a sweat for this ponderous entry which had the chance to confront racial prejudice in a serious fashion and spurned it.

This splendid film is an accurate picture of post-Civil War Texas life , much as John Ford had earlier done with Alan LeMay's "The Searchers" . The neighbors of a frontier family named Zachary (Burt Lancaster , Audie Murphy , Doug McClure and their mother excellently played by Lillian Gish) turn on them when it is suspected that their adopted daughter was stolen from the local Kiawa tribe . Then , the battle between white men and Kiowas go on the warpath . Problems emerge when a secret about a mestizo results to be discovered . As a Kiowa tribe claims that the daughter (it was Audrey Hepburn's only Western) is one of their own , stolen in a raid and she will be excluded for both races .Offbeat Western about racial intolerance focuses an enjoyable family and the dramatic deeds happen when a dark secret surfaces . It's an interesting western with exceptional interpretation from protagonist duo , Burt Lancaster and Audrey Hepburn . However , Audrey Hepburn was seriously injured when she was thrown by a horse between scenes spent six weeks in the hospital healing from a broken back, and when she returned to the set was able to complete her role wearing a back brace, John Huston blamed himself for the mishap and hated this movie, and Hepburn bore no ill will towards the director ; while Audrey was in hospital, Huston filmed scenes using a double . Furthermore , a likable Doug McClure as his kind brother , he is very fine as well as Audie Murphy as Cash, the hotheaded brother who reacts violently to learning his sister is a red skin Indian . Special mention to Lillian Gish as their affectionate mummy and Joseph Wiseman as the crazy Kelsey . The picture was well produced by Harold Hecht/James Hill/ Burt Lancaster ; they wanted to ensure its commerciality and change the film's direction , they wished to cast Kirk Douglas as Lancaster's brother, which would throw off the balance in the brothers' relationship. The first effort at a rewrite did not work and after fifty pages into the second rewrite, the original writer , J.P. Miller , quit the film and broke off his relationship with the producers and being hired Ben Maddow who wrote the script based on the novel written by Alan LeMay . Glittering and shimmer cinematography is perfectly reflected on spectacular outdoors and colorful interiors by cameraman Franz Planer , though Oswald Morris says in his memoirs he was offered this film. Emotive as well as thrilling musical score by the classic Dimitri Tiomkin .The motion picture was compellingly directed by John Huston who saw the film as an opportunity to make a serious comment on race relations, but the company thought anything along those lines should take a back seat to making it a commercial success as action/adventure . The flick was made in a good time of the 50s and 60s when Huston resurged as a filmmaker of quality films and with the momentum in his favor, as John hung around in Hollywood this time to write and/or direct some of the finest American cinema made including The African Queen , The jungle of asphalt (1950), Red badge of courage (1951) ,Moulin Rouge (1952), Moby Dick (1956), The unforgiven (1960), Misfits (1961), Freud (1962), The night of the iguana (1964) , they were for the most part, well-regarded but certainly not close to the level of his earlier revered work . He also experimented behind-the-camera with colour effects and approached topics that most others would not even broach, including thought-provoking themes and psychoanalysis . He subsequently directed successes such as Fat City, (1972 ), The man who would be king (1975) and Wise blood (1979). He ended his career on a high note with Under volcano (1984), Honor of Prizzi (1985) and Dublineses (1987). Rating : 7'5 above average , worthwhile watching . This odd western , ¨The unforgiven¨ , is one of John Huston's main films , a model of his kind , definitely a must see if you are aficionado to Western film . Huston broke a new ground with this landmark movie , providing exciting scenes and unforgettable dialogs .

Very disappointing 1960 film dealing with racial prejudice.Audrey Hepburn at some turns seemed emotionally detached from her role, as an adopted girl who discovers on the frontier that she was an Indian baby taken by the Zachary family at the time of an Indian massacre.Hepburn shows restraint in some scenes as the nun she showed a year before in "The Nun's Story." Burt Lancaster, as her adopted brother, shows some similarities to his Oscar winning performance that same year in "Elmer Gantry." He is again a stalwart,showing religious convictions and no prejudice whatsoever.Audie Murphy is the real rebel here, as another brother who can't accept the fact that his adopted sister is really an Indian and abandons the family to pursue romance with Kipp Hamilton, late sister-in-law of television's Carol Burnett. For me, Hamilton made her mark as the distraught former student of Jennifer Jones in "Good Morning, Miss Dove," 5 years before this film.Veteran pro Lillian Gish is gutsy in the thankless role of the mother. She will do anything to hide the truth.The movie just tells about a group's prejudice reaction. It doesn't go into the necessary detail.Hepburn's rejection of her real life comes into focus at the end, but by this time the film has degenerated into "A Gunfight at the OK Corral-like atmosphere.