The Unforgiven (1960)

★½
Audrey Hepburn was a wonderful actress, but as good as she was, her range didn't spread far enough to play this role in The Unforgiven, her weakest movie. At her best, Hepburn delighted audiences with her ethereal beauty and charming disposition, and her best movies bring out those qualities, making her irresistible to watch. I don't know who was in charge of casting The Unforgiven, but whoever he was, he added a blemish to Hepburn's filmography. The movie doesn't work for a lot of reasons. It's badly executed, poorly scripted and miscast to the point of embarrassment.

The movie takes place in the Old West, with the Zacharys living a modest life. Their lives aren't too eventful, until one day an old stranger appears to stir up trouble. His words have spread slowly throughout the community, claiming that Rachel Zachary (Hepburn) is really a Kiowa Indian girl. Her brother Ben (Burt Lancaster) dismisses these claims. As far as he's concerned, his late father found Rachel in an abandoned covered wagon and adopted her.

The old man isn't the only one to carry this secret. The Indians arrive at the Zachary home carrying the same news. One of them even says he's her brother. Ben doesn't buy any of these stories. Later on, Indians kill Rachel's fiancé Charlie (Albert Salmi), and his bitter father demands the old man spreading these rumors be hunted down to tell the truth. Ben and his friends set out to locate the old man, and once they do, they learn the startling truth. Rachel is the only survivor from a slaughtered Kiowa camp.

Hepburn just doesn't work as an American Indian. She has neither the appearance nor the accent. One character comments that her skin is a little dark. Now, I know there was nothing wrong with my television set, and let me tell you, she's just as white as everyone else. One baffling scene has Hepburn looking into a mirror and opening her shirt. Her expression suggests that she just realized the truth about her background. How? What did she see that she didn't notice before?

All through the film, Hepburn tries to talk in this western accent, but to no avail. She doesn't even say the word "ain't" convincingly. In another bit of miscasting, we have John Saxon as a friendly Indian, but he sounded Irish to me. Were my ears playing tricks on me? The rest of the cast fares better. Burt Lancaster is perfectly cast as the big brother who tries to protect his sister. Even after he learns the truth, he insists that Rachel is part of the family. Screen legend Lillian Gish stars as their mother Mattilda, who concealed the secret from her children for all those years.

The ending gets more offensive the more you think about it. A climactic Indian raid on the Zachary home results in many Indians getting shot down. For what? They approached Ben earlier in the film, in a gesture of peace, but he denies them peace. In the end, when the Indians try to get their fellow Kiowa back (albeit forcefully), Ben, his brother, Mattilda and even Rachel shoot at them while they ride around in circles, waiting to get shot off their horses.

I read that director John Huston didn't like The Unforgiven. No wonder. I didn't like it either. Hepburn and Lancaster, two big stars during Hollywood's Golden Age, have done much better than this.

© 2003 Silver Screen Reviews