The Unforgiven 1960

     The Zachary family lives on the Texas frontier.  They are making a good living on their ranch and their neighbors respect them.  Kiowa Indians killed their father Will Zachary.  That leaves the mother Mattilda, oldest son Ben, next oldest son Cash, adopted daughter Rachel and youngest son Charlie.  Mattilda sees old man Abe Kelsley and she doesn’t know if he’s a real man.  He hides in the brush on his horse and he has a saber instead of a gun.  He claims that Rachel Zachary is an Indian as she was stolen as a baby from the Kiowas.  Everyone believes Kelsey is crazy and he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  Three Kiowa men appear at the cabin and one of them claims to be Rachel’s brother.  The offer to trade horses to Ben in exchange for the return of Rachel.  Ben says he’s not giving Rachel to them for any amount of horses.  Charlie Rawlins comes courting Rachel and Ben agrees that they can marry.  On his way home, Kiowas kill Charlie.  Ben and some of the ranchers track down Kelsey and bring him to the nearby Rawlins ranch.  He’s to be hung as a horse thief.  Kelsey tells everyone about Rachel and Mattilda claims it’s a lie.

     In this time period of the 1850’s, there was complete intolerance between the whites and the Indians.   I was surprised when the ranchers call Rachel a racial slur against Indians?  I have never heard that term before in any other western?  It seems unusual to cast Audrey Hepburn as the possible Kiowa Rachel.  She looks nothing like she could be an Indian?  If Rachel is really a Kiowa, none of the ranchers will accept her or the rest of the family.  I found it surprising that Audrey Hepburn wears obvious false eyelashes while living on a ranch in Durango?  

        

125 min Western directed by John Huston with Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Audie Murphy, John Saxon, Charles Bickford, Lillian Gish, Albert Salmi, Joseph Wiseman, June Walker, Kipp Hamilton, Arnold Merritt, Doug McClure, Carlos Rivas.

Note:  Imdb 6.7 out of 10, 58% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, TCM Leonard Maltin 3* out of 4* user rating 4.44* out of 5*, Amazon 4.2* out of 5* with 157 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in Durango, Mexico.  One of the top 100 films you must see before you die.  Production was suspended for several months in 1959 after Hepburn broke her back when she fell off a horse.  She believed the accident caused her to have a miscarriage.  She took a year off, successfully had a child and returned to film Breakfast at Tiffany’s of 1961.  Richard Burton, Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum were considered for the role of Cash Zachary.  Richard Burtonwas originally cast in the role played by Audie Murphy but he declined.  A fortuneteller predicted he would die at 33 and he did not do any film work at all in 1959.   Natalie Wood was considered for the role of Rachel Zachary.  Bette Davis turned down the role of Mattilda Zachary, she didn’t want to play Burt Lancaster’s mother.  John Huston describes this as the only film he entirely disliked.  There is another film with the same title from 1992.