The Unforgiven

John Huston's 1960 Western, adapted from the novel by Alan Le May, could be a companion piece to John Ford's earlier masterpiece The Searchers (also based on a Le May book). Both explore the hatred and violence between white settlers and Indian tribes and the complicated loyalties of family when bloodlines cross racial boundaries. Burt Lancaster stars as Ben Zachary, the eldest son in a frontier family who takes charge as patriarch after the death of their father, and Audrey Hepburn is his adopted sister Rachel, who we soon discover is a child of the Kiowa, taken as an infant and raised as a white woman. When a stranger stirs up trouble by revealing the truth, the neighbors turn against the Zacharys, while the Kiowa attack to take back Rachel. The casting of Hepburn as a Native American is a stretch (although not unusual for the era), and the film isn't sure how to handle the clear attraction between the adoptive siblings, but the portrait of racial tensions and prejudice is interesting, and Audie Murphy delivers one of his best performances as angry brother Cash, whose hatred of the Indians turns him against his own clan. The superb cast also includes John Saxon, Charles Bickford, Albert Salmi, and Lillian Gish as the Zachary matriarch, who has kept her daughter's origins a secret all these years. Remastered for its Blu-ray debut and re-release on DVD, this is recommended. (S. Axmaker)