People are voting emotionally.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

It's 1763 in and around Fort Pitt in western Pennsylvania. Gary Cooper is an amiable captain in His Majesty's First Own Monongahela Fusiliers or something. Trouble is brewing with the Indians, called "savages." The savages speak a made-up language, unless "iksa" is a prominent part of their Algonquian dialect. When they speak English, they say: "You burn white woman at stake." Paulette Goddard is a slave whose ownership is in question -- a tug of war between the honorable Cooper and the villainous Henry da Silva. The legitimate owner, of course, is Cooper, who soon takes to romancing his slave. "The moonlight has turned your dress into emeralds." And "The starlight is dancing in your eyes." Now, lines like this don't come easily to Gary Cooper, nor does his dress uniform. Comfortable in fringed leather, he has to wear this garish outfit to the governor's ball. An absurd three-cornered hat. A bright blue jacket with scarlet facings and bright brass buttons. But BOOTS -- no white stockings for Gary Cooper. Real men don't wear white stockings. It's just one step away from fishnet and garter belts. All together, he carries on like a man with long, jointed sticks instead of limbs, but always honorable. Cooper bamboozles a tribe of savages about to burn Goddard alive by playing tricks with a compass. The Indian chief, Boris Karloff, is stupefied by the unerring arrow of the compass. It's a scene out of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." Karloff's character -- Guyasuta - Chief of the Senecas -- was a real historical figure, an early pal of, and guide for, George Washington. Paulette Goddard is an attractive women, even though she is no longer the sprightly nymph with the pretty legs from Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times." And she's superb as a slave whose dress may be torn to shreds, who may be rough-housed by the villainous, cheating, thieving, lying, murdering, rapist Howard da Silva, dunked in a rapidly flowing river, and tortured by Indians, and who must scrub floors in a filthy tavern, but who never loses a false eyelash or is without lipstick and rouge. She was never a bravura actress but evidently a nice woman. When she died, she left most of her estate to New York University.Those taverns, by the way, look convincing as all get out, like the other interiors. Production design and set dressing don't usually get their due but they should because they add so much texture to the images. That tavern is stuffed full of sacks of grain, hewn tables, simple rickety chairs, piles of corn, long rifles hung on racks, trenchers, pewter tankards and unidentifiable bits of feathered artifacts. The direction is by Cecil B. De Mille so don't expect nuance in the acting. When a woman is frightened, she doesn't just scream. She puts her clenched fists against her cheeks, pops her eyeballs, and shrieks in horror -- if she doesn't faint outright.The movie has its merits. It's as colorful as a peacock's tail. The interplay between the characters is old fashioned but classic. We get to see George Washington when he was a mere colonel. And there is a genuinely exciting scene in which Cooper and Goddard escape from the pursuing Indians in a canoe. Their canoe plunges over a waterfall the size of Niagara and their escape is a miracle. At the end, Fort Pitt is besieged by whooping savages, scaling the palisades using canoes as ladders. The white defenders shoot them down by the hundreds, but savages are as many as needle on pine tree, mosquito in swamp, fish in Lake Erie, flea on hound dog, snake on head of Medusa, pigeon on statue, dollar in Trump wallet, fly on picnic table, illegal at border, gun in NRA closet.The climax involves a shoot out between two enemies. "I know you can draw faster than me," says one of them, drawing a line quickly from a thousand and one scenes in cheap Westerns. Well, Fort Pitt is under siege and hopelessly outnumbered. And the outcome? The cavalry arrives and saves the day. Salutem ex mortuis.

While Cecil B. DeMille is known for his sweeping (and often rather dull) religious epics, he actually made quite a few historical films about the history of North America such as "Reap the Wild Wind", "The Story of Dr. Wassell" and "Unconquered". While I wouldn't say any of these historical pieces are great, I do find them much more entertaining and less over-the-top than his 'religious' films. But, like his religious epics, these films, too, usually feature large casts, big budgets and long running times.The movie begins with Paulette Goddard being sentenced to death or indentured servitude in America. While choosing between the two fates is easy, it's not easy to understand why Goddard was cast as an English woman--especially since she never sounded the least bit English nor tried to.On board the ship taking her to the Colonies (circa 1763--give or take a few years), she runs afoul of a scoundrel, Howard De Silva--a man who almost always played jerks and heavies until being cast as Ben Franklin in "1776". De Silva insists on buying her and is enraged when nice-guy Gary Cooper purchases her instead. But Cooper doesn't want a slave and soon sets her free--he bought her mostly to tick off De Silva (who he really, really hates). As De Silva is a cheat, liar and rogue, he pays for Goddard anyway and convinces the auctioneer to take payment from BOTH Cooper and him--and giving him Goddard!! Goddard is told that Cooper really didn't buy her--and meant her purchase as a joke and she believes this.In the midst of all this, there is discontent among the Indian tribes of the West (at this point, the West is the Allegheny Mountains--near Pittsburgh). According to this film (and I am sure today the tribes involved would STRONGLY disagree), De Silva stirred up the natives and got them to stop their in-fighting and band together for war against the White settlers. And, for some reason, it's up to Cooper to put a stop to it.Now at this point, the casting is very interesting. In the politically incorrect manner of the day, the leading Indian is played by a Westerner--in this case, Boris Karloff. Now the weirdest thing about this is that Karloff actually passed for an amazingly authentic-looking guy in the film--just like he did in an earlier version of "Last of the Mohicans".The bottom line is can Cooper avert an all-out war? Can be kill the evil De Silva? And, will he get the girl in the end? Considering it's a Hollywood film, you kind of suspect the answer to these questions!!! But, in spite of this predictability, the film is quite entertaining. I also liked SOME of the outdoor scenes--some were quite spectacular. However, and this is my biggest gripe, is that all too often, instead of relying on location shooting it was all too often clearly shot in a sound stage...too often! So, despite the nice color film and acting, the whole thing looked a bit too stagy for my tastes...and sometimes the painted backgrounds are ridiculously bad. But if that's the worst of it, I can live with this.

Cecil B. DeMille undoubtedly believed in Manifest Destiny, and not just of the old-fashioned, land-grabbing, Injun-fighting variety depicted here. He also believed in a modern equivalent of his own, whereby he took his share, made his mark and crowned himself a king of the movie industry he had helped to create. This legendary arrogance carried itself over into every aspect of the pictures he produced and directed. belief Part of this arrogance involved an conviction in his own abilities to carry a movie. He would hire writers who were able to assemble a story with a decent balance of action and romance, rather than those capable of depth or elegance. Likewise he tended to cast people according to their physicality rather than their talent. Not that he always took on bad actors, but he gave them little coaching or try to fit person to persona. Paulette Godard for example falls well below her usual standard here. She looks right because she is both attractive and upstanding, but the character is far too bland for her usual feistiness. It didn't always work out badly though. DeMille's male leads could often be dull lumps grunting their way through the adventure, but Gary Cooper was really made for these more modest roles. He underplays it beautifully, and puts plenty of character into the tiniest of gestures. Then there were professional, naturalist types like Victor Varconi, who was always able to portray a credible human being no matter how leaden the script.And if DeMille's flair couldn't quite carry a movie, it could at least prod it along a little. Remembered largely as a showman, he was more than that a wonderful visual director, with an excellent command of crowd scenes. Take the second scene on board the ship. We dolly in through the bustle of sailors going about their business, but in the middle of the frame, mostly obscured at first, Porter Hall sits tapping his cane on a case. This draws our attention to him as a character rather than an extra, even though he begins the shot as no more than a face in the crowd. This is typical DeMille – the creation of a realistic looking environment, but with the ability to bend it towards the needs of story and scene. Later in the same scene we get some great examples of extras cutting through the line of action as Godard and Cooper talk, punctuating the scene and giving it a kind of awkward feel. Again, this is both realistic and effective.Contemporary reviewer Bosley Crowther described Unconquered as being "as viciously anti-redskin as The Birth of a Nation was anti-Negro long years back". He's not far wrong, although Unconquered is more tacitly patronising than Birth's explicit hostility. Still, you can get an impression of the tone from the fact that British horror legend Boris Karloff was cast as the Indian chief. It's not just that Karloff looks vaguely Amerindian if you squint and add a large dollop of imagination, it's the fact that in DeMille's eyes the natives are creepy boogiemen, and he casts Karloff as their leader for the same reason as someone might cast him to play a monster or a mad doctor. The fact that even critics of the day could castigate DeMille for his racism shows just how out of touch he was becoming.Then again, there is another strand to Unconquered that we cannot see in previous DeMille efforts – one that is almost certainly due to the impact of the recent war. The picture is incredibly frank and merciless about death and bloodshed. Cooper's buddies are picked off instantly without even a "say goodbye to my wife". One of DeMille's most elaborate and evocative shot compositions is of a mass of brutally slain soldiers. And when Cooper discovers the Salters, it is surely the most poignant moment in any DeMille picture. Perhaps the pompous old conqueror had a heart after all.

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.