Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire A Brutal Indian Movie

Saw it today on the dish. The Unforgiven.
From 1960 with Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, and Audie Murphy. And the old time star Lillian Gish.
Lillian Gish was the mother, the the others were her children.

The catch was, Audrey Hepburn was a Kiowa Indian. Stolen at birth from the Indians and adopted into the white family. Only Lillian Gish knew she was an Indian.
Kind of hard to believe that she would pass as White.

Half way through the movie, it was revealed to the brothers that the sister was not White, but Indian.

Burt Lancaster loved her and said the Kiowa would not take her back.
Audie Murphy wanted to send her back to the Indians, and he said "I won't be around a Red-Hide Niqqer!" And he actually said it and they put it in the sub titles.

The Kiowa mounted an attack on their house. In a brutal battle, about 15 Kiowa were killed. Lillian Gish was firing her trap door Springfield, and she was shot and killed.
Audrey killed several of them with her Springfield.

The farm house was burned down, but the Indians were defeated. Right at the end, Audrey Hepburn's real brother, a Kiowa, broke into the farm house. He was about 8 feet away from Audrey, and looking at her, he wanted to take her back into the Kiowa band into which she had been born. He loved his sister.
Audrey looked him right in the eyes and shot him dead with the Colt .45

It is a very good movie.

Might have been some of Murphey, Holliman, and Hepburn's best work. The old dude on the gray horse who Lillian Gish hung was very good.

That movie is one of the most underrated movies of all time. It was beyond any doubt, Murphey's finest performance as an actor.

I agree! Murphy’s best acting!!!

Loved Lillian Gish playing the piano!!

Yeah, good movie, nothing like the usual crap Audie Murphey played in.

Lillian gish was born in Massillon Ohio where i live. I see her picture in places downtown but really never gave it a thought. Even a Lillian gish boulevard. Guess she was really good, huh?

Yes, at sunset before the big battle, the Kiowa were out there at sunset playing the war flutes. Burt Lancaster and his brother carried the piano outside and had their mother Lillian Gish play the piano as a counterforce to the war pipes. I have watched every cowboy movie I have had a chance to watch, and never seen a scene like that one.

Lillian loved the little kidnapped Indian child as her own, as a replacement for her own baby who had died.
Burt Lancaster loved her as his sister, even though adopted.
Audie Murphy hated her as an Indian imposter and wanted her returned to the Kiowa. And he called her a "Red-Hide Niqqer!"

I couldn't believe that they played the audio of him making that remark, and also had it in the sub titles. I think that if the Biden Justice Department sees this movie, they will issue a warrant for the arrest of Audie Murphy. They want him to do 36 months in Leavenworth for hate crimes.

It will take the Biden Justice Department six months to learn that Audie Murphy has passed away.

You want a brutal Indian movie, go have a look at Bone Tomahawk.

Not to take away from The Unforgiven - it is an excellent movie also IMO but I did not find it particuarily brutal/

If you want to see a brutal Indian movie take a look at Black Robe. It is not a very fast moving plot but I suspect that it is more realistic than most movies made about that era.

Black Robe - preview: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101465/


drover

Added to the list.

Don't watch bone tomahawk without lights on and locked doors and a mental health therapist for afterward. Damn.

Trivia,

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054428/trivia

Brutal and not very good. It's found in the $3 bin at Wall.

Black Robe is a VERY good movie. Very authentic in many details. Was popular in the reenacting community when it came out. One reason for its authenticity is it isn’t a holly weird flick It’s Canadian!

Any decent special effects?

Otherwise, ain't got the time.

Sorta in the same vein, another thread here got me started on Shane. Turns out Alan Ladd was not fond of guns, didn’t like working with them such that the third guy he shoots in the saloon at the end of the movie his revolver plainly wasn’t on target.

Jack Palance didn’t like horses, didn’t ride well, so they ended up filming him walking his horse into town. His mounts and dismounts from a horse were so awkward that when he finally got his dismount down they used that same shot more than once in the movie, playing it backwards when he mounted up.

One innovation in Shane, they had a cable attached to Palance in that last saloon scene, and when he was shot by Ladd the cable pulled him backwards off his feet do dramatize the effect of the shot.

+10

I watched that movie in a room full of indians.

dead quiet room when it finished.

Watching “Black Robe” now.

Watch Lillian Gish and Robert Mitchum in the movie Night of the Hunter. Both Gish and Mitchum gave outstanding performances in a really good flick.

Birdwatcher, I'm kinda curious as to your source that Alan Ladd did not like guns?? I never met him but I knew some people who worked in various pictures with him where there were lots of guns and shooting and never heard any of those people say he disliked guns. Just curious.

L.W.