Unconquered (1947)

• Year: 1947
• Released: 10 Oct 1947
• Country: United States
• Adwords: Nominated for 1 Oscar. 1 nomination total
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039931/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/unconquered
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: Passed
• Genre: Adventure, Drama, History
• Runtime: 146 min
• Writer: Charles Bennett, Fredric M. Frank, Jesse Lasky Jr.
• Director: Cecil B. DeMille
• Cast: Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva
• Keywords: london, england, 18th century, british empire, british colonialism, white slavery,

6.9/10

Unconquered Storyline

It’s 1763 and two men taking the same ship back to Virginia from London bid for the contract of a woman who was given a choice between execution in England or 14 years of indentured servitude in the colonies. The winner gallantly tells her she is free and leaves the ship to join his fiance. The loser destroys the contract and takes the woman off to the frontier. His shipboard rival follows him west to foil his plans of controlling the Ohio Valley and to deliver peace belts to the Indians who have already sent out war belts.

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Unconquered Movie Reviews

One of DeMille’s better films of the era.

While Cecil B. DeMille is known for his sweeping (and often rather dull) religious epics, he actually made quite a few historical films about the history of North America such as “Reap the Wild Wind”, “The Story of Dr. Wassell” and “Unconquered”. While I wouldn’t say any of these historical pieces are great, I do find them much more entertaining and less over-the-top than his ‘religious’ films. But, like his religious epics, these films, too, usually feature large casts, big budgets and long running times.

The movie begins with Paulette Goddard being sentenced to death or indentured servitude in America. While choosing between the two fates is easy, it’s not easy to understand why Goddard was cast as an English woman–especially since she never sounded the least bit English nor tried to.

On board the ship taking her to the Colonies (circa 1763–give or take a few years), she runs afoul of a scoundrel, Howard De Silva–a man who almost always played jerks and heavies until being cast as Ben Franklin in “1776”. De Silva insists on buying her and is enraged when nice-guy Gary Cooper purchases her instead. But Cooper doesn’t want a slave and soon sets her free–he bought her mostly to tick off De Silva (who he really, really hates). As De Silva is a cheat, liar and rogue, he pays for Goddard anyway and convinces the auctioneer to take payment from BOTH Cooper and him–and giving him Goddard!! Goddard is told that Cooper really didn’t buy her–and meant her purchase as a joke and she believes this.

In the midst of all this, there is discontent among the Indian tribes of the West (at this point, the West is the Allegheny Mountains–near Pittsburgh). According to this film (and I am sure today the tribes involved would STRONGLY disagree), De Silva stirred up the natives and got them to stop their in-fighting and band together for war against the White settlers. And, for some reason, it’s up to Cooper to put a stop to it.

Now at this point, the casting is very interesting. In the politically incorrect manner of the day, the leading Indian is played by a Westerner–in this case, Boris Karloff. Now the weirdest thing about this is that Karloff actually passed for an amazingly authentic-looking guy in the film–just like he did in an earlier version of “Last of the Mohicans”.

The bottom line is can Cooper avert an all-out war? Can be kill the evil De Silva? And, will he get the girl in the end? Considering it’s a Hollywood film, you kind of suspect the answer to these questions!!! But, in spite of this predictability, the film is quite entertaining. I also liked SOME of the outdoor scenes–some were quite spectacular. However, and this is my biggest gripe, is that all too often, instead of relying on location shooting it was all too often clearly shot in a sound stage…too often! So, despite the nice color film and acting, the whole thing looked a bit too stagy for my tastes…and sometimes the painted backgrounds are ridiculously bad. But if that’s the worst of it, I can live with this.

Cooper And Goddard Take a Walk in the Woods and Go Over the Falls

Unconquered is a milestone in the career of Gary Cooper. It was the last of four films he did for Cecil B. DeMille and his last featured role during his stay with the Paramount studio. I’d have to say that Coop went out with an expensive bang.

The film illustrates both the strengths and weaknesses of a DeMille project. The color photography by Ray Rennahan is first rate, the eye for historical detail about the colonial period in terms of costumes and sets superb. The spectacle is only as DeMille could create it. Yet he could make such an elementary mistake by having the Seneca Indians pursue Gary Cooper on horseback. It was only the plains Indian tribes west of the Mississippi that used horses. But the public wanted to see Indians on horses, they were used to seeing Indians on horses. So DeMille gave them what they wanted.

DeMille himself in his autobiography confessed that he was not satisfied with the showdown of hero Gary Cooper and chief villain Howard DaSilva. He felt it was anti-climatic. I wish he had done it a bit better myself.

The film is based on a historical novel The Judas Tree by Neil Swanson who also wrote Allegany Uprising about the same colonial period. The story takes place with the background of the uprising by Pontiac who was trying to unite all the Indian tribes and keep the whites on the east side of the Appalachian mountains.

Paulette Goddard is a woman condemned to the gallows in London and is given a choice to go to the colonies as a bond servant. Of course she takes it and catches the eye of both Cooper and DaSilva. That’s a common DeMille characteristic in his films, two men in heat over the leading lady.

DaSilva is a trader with the Indians and his reasons for wanting to keep whites out of the western territories is so he can keep a monopoly of the fur trade. He’s quite ruthless in his methods, even marrying the daughter of Chief Boris Karloff of the Senecas played by Katherine DeMille. Karloff’s Senecas are allied with the Pontiac Confederation and their job is to attack Fort Pitt and the town it shields, the little village of Pittsburgh.

Such events as the siege of Fort Pitt and the massacre at Venango are interwoven in the lives of Cooper and Goddard. He leaves Fort Pitt to rescue her and they both have quite a time escaping from the Senecas. The scene that is most talked about here is our hero and heroine going over Niagara Falls in a canoe chased in canoes by pursuing Senecas. What’s most interesting about it is that it isn’t done on location. Living up here for the past 10 years and seeing it as a kid, I can tell you the Falls doesn’t look as primeval in real life as DeMille shows you how it looked in 1763. Yet even today it’s quite a breathtaking site to see our intrepid two take the plunge.

Back in 1947 we certainly weren’t terribly concerned about presenting the Indian point of view on screen and DeMille is a man of his times. There was a good film done about a decade ago about Chief Tecumseh and his attempt at an Indian confederation. Maybe we will get one about Pontiac and his movement.

Until then we have to watch items like Unconquered, enjoy the spectacle and fill in the blanks.

Hang onto your hair!

It’s 1763 in and around Fort Pitt in western Pennsylvania. Gary Cooper is an amiable captain in His Majesty’s First Own Monongahela Fusiliers or something. Trouble is brewing with the Indians, called “savages.” The savages speak a made-up language, unless “iksa” is a prominent part of their Algonquian dialect. When they speak English, they say: “You burn white woman at stake.” Paulette Goddard is a slave whose ownership is in question — a tug of war between the honorable Cooper and the villainous Henry da Silva.

The legitimate owner, of course, is Cooper, who soon takes to romancing his slave. “The moonlight has turned your dress into emeralds.” And “The starlight is dancing in your eyes.” Now, lines like this don’t come easily to Gary Cooper, nor does his dress uniform. Comfortable in fringed leather, he has to wear this garish outfit to the governor’s ball. An absurd three-cornered hat. A bright blue jacket with scarlet facings and bright brass buttons. But BOOTS — no white stockings for Gary Cooper. Real men don’t wear white stockings. It’s just one step away from fishnet and garter belts. All together, he carries on like a man with long, jointed sticks instead of limbs, but always honorable.

Cooper bamboozles a tribe of savages about to burn Goddard alive by playing tricks with a compass. The Indian chief, Boris Karloff, is stupefied by the unerring arrow of the compass. It’s a scene out of Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” Karloff’s character — Guyasuta – Chief of the Senecas — was a real historical figure, an early pal of, and guide for, George Washington. Paulette Goddard is an attractive women, even though she is no longer the sprightly nymph with the pretty legs from Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times.” And she’s superb as a slave whose dress may be torn to shreds, who may be rough-housed by the villainous, cheating, thieving, lying, murdering, rapist Howard da Silva, dunked in a rapidly flowing river, and tortured by Indians, and who must scrub floors in a filthy tavern, but who never loses a false eyelash or is without lipstick and rouge. She was never a bravura actress but evidently a nice woman. When she died, she left most of her estate to New York University.

Those taverns, by the way, look convincing as all get out, like the other interiors. Production design and set dressing don’t usually get their due but they should because they add so much texture to the images. That tavern is stuffed full of sacks of grain, hewn tables, simple rickety chairs, piles of corn, long rifles hung on racks, trenchers, pewter tankards and unidentifiable bits of feathered artifacts. The direction is by Cecil B. De Mille so don’t expect nuance in the acting. When a woman is frightened, she doesn’t just scream. She puts her clenched fists against her cheeks, pops her eyeballs, and shrieks in horror — if she doesn’t faint outright.

The movie has its merits. It’s as colorful as a peacock’s tail. The interplay between the characters is old fashioned but classic. We get to see George Washington when he was a mere colonel. And there is a genuinely exciting scene in which Cooper and Goddard escape from the pursuing Indians in a canoe. Their canoe plunges over a waterfall the size of Niagara and their escape is a miracle. At the end, Fort Pitt is besieged by whooping savages, scaling the palisades using canoes as ladders. The white defenders shoot them down by the hundreds, but savages are as many as needle on pine tree, mosquito in swamp, fish in Lake Erie, flea on hound dog, snake on head of Medusa, pigeon on statue, dollar in Trump wallet, fly on picnic table, illegal at border, gun in NRA closet.

The climax involves a shoot out between two enemies. “I know you can draw faster than me,” says one of them, drawing a line quickly from a thousand and one scenes in cheap Westerns. Well, Fort Pitt is under siege and hopelessly outnumbered. And the outcome? The cavalry arrives and saves the day. Salutem ex mortuis.