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The Unforgiven (1960)
- Michigan State University Press
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The Unforgiven| 61 Dear Diary: John Huston is a big baby. Night after night I listened to his tiresome stories about tracking and hunting “big game” until I near went deaf. Now he’s pitched a fit because we won’t use his ad copy to market Unforgiven. It read, “A splintered chronicle of sexual desire between a brotherandsister,andaKiowaIndian.”Kinky,John,butwewanttomakesomemoney,here. Sigh. It seems playing nice doesn’t cut any ice with this haughty auteur. Oooo, that rhymed. Note to Self: Must write poetic screenplay. Call Larry Olivier’s agent. Frustrated, Hollywood TheUnforgiven t t t t LeAnne Howe Picturethis:I’mfourteenyearsold.It’s10:30p.m.Saturday night, after the news. Feature-film time. My dog Ginger andIareploppedonthelivingroomcouchwaitingforthe weekend feature film to begin. Oh great, it’s got Audrey Hepburninit,she’soneofmyfavoriteactresses,andBurt Lancaster—loved him in The Birdman of Alcatraz. And look, there’s Audie Murphy. Wow, he’s a stud in this movie. (Yes, I used that word, but I didn’t really think of “stud” in any particular way. I was emulating my older and wiser high school friends. Maybe it’s the mustache and long sideburns he grew for the role that makes him seem so sexy to me. After all, this is the late ’60s.) Everyone in our family is proud of Audie Murphy’s heroism during World War II. Each time he appears in a late-night movie, someone says, “He won the Medal of Honor, the highest military honor given by our country.” However, I’m fourteen years old, petting my dog and thinking about making some popcorn when this strange, icky music (by Dimitri Tiomkin) plays over the film credits. I can tell the movie is going to be a Western. Audrey Hepburn (Rachel Zachary) is on a horse. She’s wearing a wig, long brownish-black hair. In the distance, she spies an old Confederate-looking soldier, Abe Kelsey (Joseph Wiseman). He talks to Audrey like he’s some kind of biblical prophet. His 62| LeAnne Howe voice is shaky with an oratory vibrato of doom, and I think he sounds as creepy as the music. Already I’m scared, but still anxious to see what happens next. In general, I’m not a fan of Westerns, because I always cheer for the Indians (I am one), and I wish that we could be the heroes in the movies instead of John Wayne and his band of Indian killers. But I hang in there. Burt Lancaster (Ben Zachary) makes his first appearance as Rachel’s brother. I can tell that Rachel loves him, but not exactly like a brother. As they are paired in a scene to establish their relationship, Rachel tells Ben that since she’s a foundling, and adopted by the Zacharys, it wouldn’t be improper for them to marry. This is where things get, well, a little yucky, at least for the fourteen-year-old me. I’m adopted but can’t imagine marrying my adopted brother. (He eats onion sandwiches and his room is an absolute pit.) But I let that go and trot off to the kitchen to make a skillet of popcorn for me and Ginger. By the time I return to the TV, it’s clear that the Kiowas have come looking for Rachel, their long-lost tribal member. “So, she’s Kiowa,” I say to Ginger. “They always wear such cool outfits.” The Zacharys, the white settler family that has adopted Rachel, are Manifest Destiny personified. In the film they stand in for all settler colonials running Indians off their lands out West. The whites are shown as honest, hard-working, nation-building patriots who have to deal with pesky Plains Indians, the barriers to progress, Jackson Turner–style. Ben is the family’s eldest son of the Zachary clan; Audie Murphy is the middle brother, Cash; and Doug McClure is Andy, the youngest brother. Lillian Gish is their widowed mother, Mattilda. The family is torn apart when Kelsey reveals the truth about Rachel’s Kiowa identity. The Zacharys must suddenly come to grips not only with the fact that they’ve been living with a savage, but the very savages that killed Pa Zachary, the head of their family. Needless to say, Cash goes a little nuts. Since their father’s murder by the Kiowas, Cash hates all Indians. Ben doesn’t like the way Cash is acting toward Rachel and tells him to “Pack up...