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.

Never watched this movie...🤔

Murphy was no Burt Lancaster.

Interesting comment on your linked site:

According to Burt Lancaster biographer Gary Fishgall, Lancaster and Audie Murphy were engaged in an invitational tournament at a new golf course near Durango. John Huston had an airplane filled with 2000 ping-pong balls with anti-Mexican and profane language and had them dropped all over the course, making it impossible to continue as none of the players could find their golf balls. Lancaster, who co-sponsored the event, was furious with Huston.

Going to netflix em all if possible, friend gave me his password. I still feel things will get very brutal in public here and we are the Indians.

The Unforgiven makes my top 10 western list. Excellent movie that I saw when I was a kid. The hanged guy was Joseph Wiseman, IIRC.

The book The Unforgiven, was the basis for the movie. Alan LeMay was the author of it and also The Searchers. The Searchers basically is about conflicts with the Comanche tribe and The Unforgiven is about conflicts with the Kiowas.

Damn good movie

Charles Bickford, John Saxon and Doug McClure were also in it. McClure went on to star as Trampas in the long running TV western, The Virginian.

Very interesting and THANK YOU. I will be picking up the books via amazon

No problem.

I like the scene before the final showdown where Momma plays the piano by the river while everyone stands guard around her, rifles ready.

Good? Yeah, I think one could say that she was.




"Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 – February 27, 1993) was an American pioneering actress of the screen and stage, and a director and writer. Her film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was called "The First Lady of American Cinema", and is credited with pioneering fundamental film performance techniques."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Gish


Melvyn Douglas presenting an Honorary Oscar to Lillian Gish for superlative artistry and for distinguished contribution to the progress of motion pictures, at the 43rd Academy Awards in 1971.

Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the rifles used in The Unforgiven Sharps carbines. I haven't watched that one in a long time but IIRC they were sharps. Guess I'd best watch it tonight.
Paul B.

Started watching Black Robe last night on youtube...pretty good so far

Saw Black Robe just a while ago and yes, loved its feel and details. Very authentic. One vivid shock of a dismissable special effect but ....nit pick .

Great feel for vastness and tenuous way of life of Jesuits and natives.

Bone Tomahawk.....had me wondering who dreamt up that sick mess and why did I watch it to the end for 'entertainment'?

I know off no basis for anything like that group of pre historic,....whatever the heck they were supposed to be.

For those who haven't seen it, it is about a 'tribe' of cliff dwelling , isolated, savage folks with some self mutilated hole in their sternums they can sort of whistle through to communicate in a way that identifies other tribe members. The most disturbing scene involves a scalping and splitting open of a captive before they eat him. Oh that and the blinded, mutilated, barely kept alive impregnated surrogates......

There- no reason to watch now.

Thank me later.

I did watch it and there was one Sharpes rifle, several Sharpes carbines, two Winchester 92s doctored up to look like iron frame Henrys. I don't think I saw any Springfields though. I'd forgotten what good movie it was.
Paul B.

My sentiments about it exactly.

drover

I remember that now. guess I'd mentally blocked it

Thank you

Cold and raining here again today, watched Black Robe this morning.

Excellent movie.

When I was young I read everything I could find on the fur trade and early European exploration of North America. I have some time now and may reread some of it.

Thanks again

I have a pair of fire strikers made by the late Mike Ameling. He referred to them as his "Daniel" strikers from when Daniel is lighting the slowmatch on his match lock. He tried to replicate them best he could. Here you go!

The Unforgiven utilizes weaponry much closer to historically accurate than many movies of the day. I consider The Searchers to be the best movie ever made. However, it is still not without flaw and weaponry is a major one. The Unforgiven at least tries to be more accurate. Back then, replicas were not prolific, if available at all, so they relied on original guns and there weren't many original Henry's. The pistols are not as good, with SAA's being the focus and by the mid 1870's they wouldn't have been nearly as prolific on the frontier as they were in the late years of the decade. One assumes this story takes place about 1874 and the SAA would have been out only a year at that time, which is still much better than The Searchers, where most everybody is armed with them in 1869!

The Sharps carbines are a nice touch. 1859 or 1863 model Sharps Cavalry carbines converted to 50-70 Government. This took place in Texas and for awhile, The Texas Rangers were armed with these guns. The government also actually gave them away to settlers in Arizona, for protection. Glen Campbell and Matt Damon are so-armed in the respective versions of True Grit.

If it’s on Wiki it must be true......

Scroll down to “Production”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_(film)

The reference source website link provided by Wikifrom TurnerClassic Movies no longer works, here’s another that does not reference Ladd in that context but gives other interesting trivia....

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0046303/trivia

Found The Unforgiven on direct tv and wife and I both watched it. Have to admit we both thought it was pretty lame. Maybe a 3-4 on a scale of 1-10. I wouldnt watch it again.

Birdwatcher, thank you for those links re the production of Shane. Here is some "trivia" that was told to me by an older screen writer with whom I became friends. He was under contract to Paramount when Shane was being filmed. He told me that Stevens shot over 1,000,000 feet of 35 mm film. That's enough for about eight standard length films of the time period. Stevens shot everything! Over and over and over.

My friend told me that the reasoning for the editing and reediting problems came because Stevens had so much film it was very difficult to organize the film in a workable sequence, therefore that was part of the $2,000,000 cost overrun. When Paramount finally premiered the film in Santa Barbara, at the end people were walking out of the theater laughing in derision at the overly melodramatic movie. They brought the picture back to the studio, held a conference about what to do. After all, $2,000,000 in 1951 was one helluva lot more then than today and Paramount was going to take a real bath.

They fired Stevens and his film editor and hired another (uncredited) producer and film editor. After viewing the movie they'd premiered and reading the book, the producer said, "Why don't we edit it from the point-of-view of the boy, who's telling the story in the novel?" He disliked a whole lot of the dialogue in the film so he called in one of the great "script doctors," Jack Sher, to "doctor" the dialogue. So he and his film editor edited the film to become what eventually was shown in the theaters.

I must say I question strongly that they had to do 119 takes of Ladd demonstrating his gun handling prowess to Joey, shooting in the corral, even though Stevens was well known for never being satisfied with a scene when he shot it.. It was far too non-complicated a bit of action for that to have happened. As for the Colt revolver used for the shooting scenes -- and many gunfighter movies even today where single action revolvers are used -- the revolvers are tricked out double action revolvers so the actor can "shoot real fast." Just pull the trigger as fast as you can. Very, very few people can shoot single action Colts rapidly that fast, therefore the double action revolvers.

Eyes shut when shooting means Ladd disliked guns? I don't buy that simply because when all that black powder smoke is blowing out, virtually anyone would blink. As for "not pointing" his revolver at his target in the saloon, that is more a viewpoiint from the camera angle. Now the final shooting of the guy upstairs, Ladd did not aim "up" enough for a real bullet to have connected with the bad guy. I have an idea that Stevens did not catch that when it was being filmed or he would have done another take. Ladd was in many movies previous to Shane where he shot other actors and had no problem aiming at the actor. That's just my guess.

I do not take everything for gospel in IMDB. They make mistakes, too. They've made a couple of mistakes in listing my writing credits, and I've noticed a few with other writers with whom I'm well acquainted. IMDB is good, but as with anything of that nature. it is not perfect.

Thanks again for the link.

L.W.