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Scripted by Ben Maddow, from the 1957 novel by Alan Le May (who also wrote The Searchers four years earlier), John Huston’s The Unforgiven opens in New York. Set in the Texas panhandle in the 1860s, the film charts the violent, racially charged conflict that engulfs a well-respected rancher family when it is revealed that their much-loved adopted daughter is, in fact, an Indian, snatched as a baby from her tribe by the family’s patriarch. All hell breaks loose when a Kiowa Indian war party arrives demanding the return of their stolen kin. An affecting, atypical Western with standout performances from Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Charles Bickford, Lillian Gish and, in particular, Audie Murphy.
