On U List of Movie Reviews
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The Unforgiven (1960)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
1/25
1/25:
Uh.............The Searchers, anyone?
That makes sense because Alan Le May wrote the books for it and The Unforgiven in 1954 and 1957,
respectively. Both are the same story except this time the child was taken from the Indians. Instead
of Natalie Wood, it's Audrey Hepburn who has the honors of assuming the brownfaced role. How her character
would be proved this way by being stripped down is beyond my comprehension. Ironically, Audrey Hepburn turned
down the role in Sayonara because she couldn't see herself playing an
"Oriental," but what's the difference here?
For the longest time, I thought about giving the film a '7' because of the high quality. Then, the thinkable
happened: Ben ordered his brother to shoot one of the three Kiowas dead despite them coming peacefully for a talk.
I was like, "Uh, John Huston...you just lost me, dude." Forget the rest of the film as it made zero sense to
support a white family of killers. All they had to do was give up the woman because she rightfully belonged
to the Kiowas. Even Rachel rejected her biological Indian brother (I thought that was the father, but either
way, it didn't make a difference) by shooting him in cold blood.
There were a lot of things that I didn't understand. Why now? Why after twentysomething years when the Kiowas
could take the baby back at the beginning? How could Rachel and Ben's mother be left alone when he and
others were preparing to go away to Wichita? Whatever happened to Johnny Portugal afterwards?
During the fighting, why not the Kiowas come up with a better battle strategy by taking the house from
the rear? That couldn't be hard because the cows were on the roof which meant the back had to be
filled with a dirt ramp leading up to the roof. If Rachel loved Ben the whole time and they weren't even
siblings in blood, then why didn't they get married? That being said, how about giving up Rachel to the
Kiowas so everybody could live? Then, Ben would marry her, creating an alliance between his family and them.
Anyway, the performances are fine. I have no issue with any of the players except for Audrey Hepburn and
John Saxon for being brownfaced. Anyone can tell that Rachel looks different from her white counterparts.
The Unforgiven is actually an infamous film because of what happened to Audrey Hepburn. She fell
off a horse and subsequently broke her back which led to miscarriage not long after yet was smoking
three packs a day at the time. Hence, it's the only Western movie of her career.
All in all, whatever the point John Huston was trying to make in The Unforgiven, an appropriate
title after all, simply has come down to this: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."