Unconquered

Plot summary

Based on Neil Swanson's Unconquered, a Novel of the Pontiac Conspiracy, the film focuses on "Abby" Hale (Paulette Goddard), who is condemned to death by a British court, then offered clemency if she will become an indentured servant in America. There is a bidding competition between Captain Christopher Holden (Gary Cooper) and Martin Garth (Howard Da Silva), which Holden wins. He then sets her free. Unfortunately, Garth is a sore loser; he kidnaps Abby and takes her to the western frontier, where he is involved in illegal arms sales to the Native Americans. Soon, Holden becomes involved in the conflict with the warring tribes and is reunited with Abby; he also has further confrontations with Garth and his henchman (Mike Mazurki).

Cast

Production

The film cost $4 million, $1 million of which was spent on the actors salaries. The salary costs were the largest in de Mille's career to date.

Home video

The film is available on DVD issued by Universal Pictures.

The "White Slave" letter

The original Neil Swanson novel, on which the film was based, was prefaced by an excerpt from a genuine historical document, providing much of the background: a letter concerning the Holdens of Virginia, written by one of their descendants in the frontier village of St. Anthony in Minnesota, at the great falls of the Mississippi, in the summer of 1862 - a century after the time of the plot.

"My great-grandmother was a slave. She was white. She was an English girl. Yet she was exhibited and sold at auction, not by barbarous Algerian but by the brutal laws of her own people. For it was even possible, in those days, for a man who had grown weary of his wife to put a rope around her neck, lead her to a public market, and there sell her.

This girl was a virgin. She was accused of murder, tried, found guilty, sentenced to the gallows-and then given the harsh choice of death by hanging or of slavery. (In a court in London) To live was to hope. She chose life, and so became the property of a man who lusted for her, though he had a wife.

She was young when these things happened-only seventeen-and it is said that she was very lovely. I tell you of her so that you may see how far a journey we have come from the day when, in America, a white girl could be sold and bought as you would sell or buy a cow, a horse, a dog - could be lawfully and publicly stripped naked, whipped, shamed, and degraded" ([1]).