Credits

Studio: A Cecil B. DeMille Production
Paramount Pictures
Released: October 3, 1947

Featured Cast: Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva, Boris Karloff

Producer-director: Cecil B. DeMille
Screenwriters: Charles Bennett, Fredric M. Frank, Jesse Lasky Jr.
Source: the Neil H. Swanson novel
Additional writers: Jeanie Macpherson, Norman Reilly Raine
Art directors: Hans Dreier, Walter Tyler, Dan Sayre Groesbeck
Costumer: Gwen Wakeling
Cinematographer: Ray Rennahan
Music: Victor Young
Editor: Anne Bauchens

Theme

An unjustly accused woman is sentenced to slavery in the American colonies.

Production Quote

“Cecil B. DeMille has chosen the feminine star he brought to celebrity in North West Mounted Police as the partner of Gary Cooper in his historical feature Unconquered. Paulette Goddard it is, who will be seen as Abby Hale, convicted of murder in England and sent to America in a state of virtual slavery, the strongest acting part she has ever had.”

– Edwin Schallert, “Paulette DeMille Star,” Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1946

Reviews

“Spectacularly, stirringly and with a panoply of gaudy color, Cecil B. DeMille again screen-vitalizes a chapter out of American history in his picture Unconquered. One may also say that he has supplied both a boisterous and sensational delineation of the frontiersman’s era with the full complement of DeMille devices, even to the famous bath sequence, a dip into the serial thrillers when the hero and heroine shoot the rapids to the edge of a waterfall, and the staging of the battle of Fort Pitt that far outdoes any conflict that was ever dreamt up for a world’s fair carnival.”

– Edwin Schallert, Los Angeles Times, November 26, 1947

“Like David O. Selznick’s Duel in the Sun, Unconquered is so un-DeMille it’s surprising. But, like Duel, it will get business, despite the ten-twent-thirt meller-dramatics and the frequently inept script. The performances are convincing, a great tribute to the cast because that dialogue and those situations would try the best of troupers.”

– Daily Variety, September 24, 1947

Letters From Regional Theater Owners

“Entertainment does not come any better than in this one. It is a truly big production. Many came twice to see it. You are just happy to be in the business after playing a picture like this.”

– J.L. Thayer, Raymond Theatre, Raymond, New Hampshire, Motion Picture Herald, September 18, 1948

Artist Comment

“One of the lines in Unconquered is ‘These men is possum hunters,’ spoken by a sergeant bragging of what deadly sharpshooters his militiamen are. I could only bow in merited shame before the letters which came in after the film was released, pointing out that opossum are not shot, but trapped.”

– Cecil B. DeMille, Autobiography

Figures

Unconquered cost $4,371,593.62 and grossed $6,665,992.36.
(These figures have not been adjusted for inflation nor do they include the considerable profits realized from reissues, television syndication, and home entertainment formats.)