Los inconquistables

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.

If you hate political correctness, you may love, "Unconquered." This film, from 1947, doesn't have the contemporarily familiar themes of evil settlers, or land thieves. In fact, the Indians are the bad guys in this one. The Indians, aided by a corrupt Englishman, have decided to wipe out white settlers in a race war. Gary Cooper is quick to the rescue. All the while he attempts to regain his bond slave, escape the gallows for treason, and fight his nemesis who happens to be the Indians' best friend. This is a strong film.

I must confess I really like Cecil B. DeMille's pseudo historical epics. They are as fascinating to watch as a head on collision between two (2) trains and about as subtle. So lets get this clear if your looking for any sort of historical accuracy, LOOK ELSEWHERE! For hand-wringing political correctness BEGONE! The Colonial Settlers are good, the Indians bad and the British are incompetent, thats it. If you are expecting dialog by way of Hamlet thats not going to be here either. Like Harrison Ford said about George Lucas, "You can write dialog like that, but we can't say it".

The fun of this film is to watch it unfold in all it's glorious Three (3) Strip Technicolor and follow the adventures of Paulette Goddard with Gary Cooper as they move from one (1) set piece to another. For thats what this film is as series of set pieces. Or as what some critics of DeMille felt, he did not make motion pictures but moving paintings, though very entertaining ones.

"The Perils of Paulette" is what the critics referred to this picture upon its original release. I think very few actresses were put upon more then she was in this movie. She was bound (chains, rope or leather), almost whipped, almost burned at the stake, almost drowned going over a waterfall, almost raped, etc. If this had been a pre-code film I am sure we would have seen something like the excesses in 'THE SIGN OF THE CROSS'! It would have been interesting to see what ended up on the cutting room floor that could not make it past the censors. Supposedly during filming she blew up and walked off the set until DeMille could bring things down to an acting (or pain tolerance) level, referring to DeMille as a SADIST! DeMille liked troopers such as Barbara Stanwyck and did not forget this. When Paulette wanted the role of 'Delilah' DeMille told her to take two (2) drop dead pills and effectively ended her career. When the 'UNCONQUERED' was finished CB issued gold medallions to those he felt were real troopers. Boris Karloff got one (1) and the drummer boy (for not flinching when a ball of fire bounces off his drum), not Paulette.

When you watch a Cecil B. DeMille film the important thing is not to take it seriously and just enjoy the ride. There are alway some neat things that you can pick up. Though he plays fast and loose with history (most directors do to this day; Michael Moore, Oliver Stone) he gets a lot of details right. The firearms, swords, uniforms even the shape of the British star fort are all right on. There is also excellent attention to detail on the day to day life of this period of history. He did build his films from the ground up and if did not convey historical accuracy gave a good imitation. Sort of a 1940's version of virtual reality. It looks great but is not all there.

I saw this film in the theater when I was nine. All I and my contemporaries cared about was shooting and dying. Years later I wondered why Colonel Bouquet spoke accented English. Some mild research turned up the fact that Colonel wa an historic figure. Bouquet was a Swiss mercenary who commanded troops for the Brits. Who ever expected that level of hitoricity from De Mille. I leave to others to research whether the flag over the british fort was correct.

I am no fan of Cecil B. DeMille, but I actually quite liked 'Unconquered'. Other DeMilles (especially those set in antiquity) are mealstroms of poor writing and worse pacing, with often genuinely talented actors being forced to utter painfully bombastic lines of dialogue. In 'Unconquered', the pacing is rather uneven, too, but there is a bit of real suspense and the dialogues are not as bad. The plot is of course totally over the top, with lots of implausible turns and twists (beginning with the character played by Paulette Goddard travelling to exactly the same place in the American interior as the one played by Gary Cooper). Cooper is a convincing hero, Goddard is far less convincing as - well, what is she? Not quite a damsel in permanent distress, but no heroine either. Anyway, Howard Da Silva is a suitably nasty villain and Boris Karloff a relatively dignified chief of the Seneca. All in all, this makes for a quite satisfying mix.