Blu-ray Review Unconquered – Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[t1g3r5fan]

By 1947, Cecil B. DeMille was long established as one of the premier directors and master showmen in Hollywood. While he’s best known today for his biblical epics – which include both the 1923 and 1956 versions of The Ten Commandments and Samson and Delilah (1949) – he also looked to our nation’s history for movie material; one of those movies was Unconquered, a look at 18th Century pre-Revolutionary War America. Previously released on DVD by Universal, Kino his licensed the movie for its Blu-ray debut.



Unconquered (1947)



Released: 10 Oct 1947
Rated: Passed
Runtime: 146 min




Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Genre: Adventure, Drama, History



Cast: Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva
Writer(s): Charles Bennett, Fredric M. Frank, Jesse Lasky Jr...

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[benbess]

The perceptive review above says:

"Bathed in luscious Technicolor, the 18th Century western frontier of the American Colonies come to life under Ray Rennahan’s cinematography (he made a career out of being a Technicolor specialist) and it extends to the spectacular production values as well; when Hans Dreier’s recreated sets weren’t being used, DeMille utilized the Pennsylvania countryside as well as the Snake River in Idaho for great effect – the latter for a rousing river chase sequence involving Holden, Abby and pursuing Indians. However, the major fault with the film lies in two areas: that the script (penned by Charles Bennett, Fredric Frank and Jesse Lasky Jr.) is filled with many clichés (even by the standard of a typical DeMille production) about the Indians on the western frontier – despite the fact the director had paid two research experts to gain a historical sense of that time – and that the film itself feels overlong (also even by DeMille standards). Despite that, Unconquered is still a solid entertainment in DeMille’s inimitable and sensationalistic style...."

I've had a weakness for DeMille's hokum since I was a kid, when I watched The Greatest Show on Earth on TV in the mid-1970s. I still think Jimmy Stewart's role as Buttons the Clown is wonderful in that movie, and the rest of it is pretty darn good too. Spielberg saw Greatest Show as maybe his first movie ever in the theater, at about the age of five, and clearly it had an impact, as can be seen in the trailer for his new autobiographical movie The Fabelmans:



Unconquered has Boris Karloff as a Seneca Indian Chief, and as mentioned in the review the portrayal of indigenous Americans is unfortunate even for 1947, making the movie difficult for me to watch at times. I saw Unconquered once before about thirty years ago, but it was even worse than I remembered when it comes to its portrayal of "Indians."

Gary Cooper, however, does his usual solid work, and Paulette Goddard is also good.

DeMille's lavish production still wows in some scenes, including a waterfall sequence that feels similar in places to 1992's The Last of the Mohicans.

The picture quality on this blu-ray is good but not great. Compared to the A/A+ PQ so often found in Warner Archive releases of 3-strip Technicolor films, this looks more like a B to me, but probably that's all the film needs. Of all of DeMille's films only 1956's The Ten Commandments has been fully restored.

Unconquered was probably the most expensive Hollywood movie released in 1947, with a then huge $4.4 million production budget, much of which is up there on the screen. The movie did good box office, but because it was so expensive it lost money in its initial theatrical run. Almost certainly TV revenues long ago pulled it into the black.

 

[Alan Tully]

It's a huge favourite of mine, I must have seen it on TV when I was young, & like so many films I saw on TV then, it's sort of seeped into my DNA. I have the German Blu-ray, which I think looks fine, not quite Warner Archive standards, but light years better than those Fox three-strip abominations. I don't have any problem the portrayal of the Indians (as they were called then), that's just old westerns for you, right up to the seventies (with a few exemptions).

 

[Douglas R]

I bought the Kino Blu-ray just a few weeks ago. Very entertaining film. I think the last time I saw it was decades ago on TV in black and white! Good to see one of my favourite actors, Howard Da Silva, in a major role. Impressive, well researched, audio commentary by Nick Pinkerton.