John Huston's "The Unforgiven" is an unusually sensitive Western about racismnever to be confused with Oscar Winner "Unforgiven" with Clint Eastwood... The film (adapted from a novel by Alan LeMay, author of "The Searchers") is a study of racial, intolerance on the Texas frontier...
The film lacks the sweep and dramatic impulse that would have made it a great picture... Even so it is an interesting and offbeat tale of Indian racial prejudice and warfare among the white settlers, set in the Texas Panhandle of the late 1860s...
Lancaster clicks as the 'terrible temper charmer,' the stepbrother of Audrey Hepburn who turns out to be a full-blooded Kiowa, the Indians claim for their own... John Wisemanthe mysterious deranged ex-soldier on horseback, armed with the "sword of God," spread the word that Hepburn is a Kiowa child...
The story has its moments of excitements, but it moves a little too deliberately across the screen to create the suspense needed to hold audience interest taut through a two-hour film...
Audie Murphy plays his role convincingly as Lancaster's hot-headed brother whose hatred of Indians pushes him to desert his family... Murphy is reckless, impulsive, yet capable of spurts of heroic deeds and loyalty...
Audrey Hepburn is too delicate as the troubled Indian girl, the 'turmoil,' the target of the haunted pioneer family...
Huston moves his players carefully through the great outdoors in such a way that they didn't take too much away from some excellent camera views of the noble scenery...
The legendary Lillian Gish plays Mozart on piano out on the prairie to scare away an Indian attack...
Toward the climax there are a number of effective scenes in the Indian raid, and a happy ending in which a couple appears bound for marriage...
The film lacks the sweep and dramatic impulse that would have made it a great picture... Even so it is an interesting and offbeat tale of Indian racial prejudice and warfare among the white settlers, set in the Texas Panhandle of the late 1860s...
Lancaster clicks as the 'terrible temper charmer,' the stepbrother of Audrey Hepburn who turns out to be a full-blooded Kiowa, the Indians claim for their own... John Wisemanthe mysterious deranged ex-soldier on horseback, armed with the "sword of God," spread the word that Hepburn is a Kiowa child...
The story has its moments of excitements, but it moves a little too deliberately across the screen to create the suspense needed to hold audience interest taut through a two-hour film...
Audie Murphy plays his role convincingly as Lancaster's hot-headed brother whose hatred of Indians pushes him to desert his family... Murphy is reckless, impulsive, yet capable of spurts of heroic deeds and loyalty...
Audrey Hepburn is too delicate as the troubled Indian girl, the 'turmoil,' the target of the haunted pioneer family...
Huston moves his players carefully through the great outdoors in such a way that they didn't take too much away from some excellent camera views of the noble scenery...
The legendary Lillian Gish plays Mozart on piano out on the prairie to scare away an Indian attack...
Toward the climax there are a number of effective scenes in the Indian raid, and a happy ending in which a couple appears bound for marriage...