1960 - THE UNFORGIVEN, racism is bad.

Based on a book by Alan Le May, who wrote The Searchers.  The Unforgiven is essentially the same story flipped around.  A western family adopts a Kiowa Indian baby as their own child which causes all sorts of trouble when her actual Kiowa family wants her back. 

The director, John Huston appears to be trying to make a statement about racism but it looks like he had his hands full dealing with his all star cast (Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Audie Murphy, Lillian Gish and John Saxon).  The Unforgiven was produced by Lancaster's production company and distributed by United Artists.  With all the fish crowding into this little puddle the end result is just another western. 

The Unforgiven looks good, the cinematography was by Franz Planner who shot it widescreen, the wild west looks very flat and dry  Dimitri Tiomkin wrote one of his typical overblown scores although this one isn't as fun as usual.

Audrey Hepburn is completely miscast as the Kiowa Indian girl, Burt Lancaster gives his usual overblown performance and Audie Murphy's inexperience as an actor shows through in every scene he is in.  Only Lillian Gish manages to give a decent performance. 

John Huston was a director who made a lot of good films and a lot of bad ones, The Unforgiven is one of his not so hot films.  About the only thing that the viewer can enjoy in this film is the Indian attack at the end of this film which is fairly exciting.

125 minutes, screenplay by Ben Maddow and David Wolff.