Trivia

Before filming began, director John Huston and star Burt Lancaster took actress Lillian Gish out to the desert to teach her how to shoot, which she would have to do in the film. However, Huston was astounded to discover that Gish could shoot more accurately, and faster, than both he and Lancaster, who thought themselves expert marksmen. It turned out that early in her career Gish was taught how to shoot by notorious western outlaw and gunfighter Al J. Jennings, who had become an actor after his release from a long prison sentence for train robbery and was in the cast of one of her films. She found that she liked shooting and over the years had developed into an expert shot.

In his autobiography, John Huston describes this film as the only one he ever made that he entirely disliked. Ironically, the critic David Thomson, not normally in the vanguard of Huston's admirers, called it his best film.

According to Audie Murphy's biographer Don Graham, the script called for Burt Lancaster to slap him. That enraged the war hero to such a degree that witnesses thought that Murphy, who carried a gun, might have killed Lancaster under different circumstances. John Huston eventually defused the situation.

"The Unforgiven" was Audrey Hepburn's only Western.

Audrey Hepburn was seriously injured when she was thrown by a horse between scenes. Hepburn, who was several months pregnant, spent six weeks in the hospital healing from a broken back, and when she returned to the set, was able to complete her role wearing a back brace, which her wardrobe had to be redesigned to hide. Sadly, she suffered a miscarriage a few months later, which some blamed on her injury from this movie. John Huston blamed himself for the mishap and hated this movie. Hepburn, however, bore no ill will towards the director. While Hepburn was in hospital, Huston filmed scenes using a double.