The historical epic John Carpenter called “awesome”
With genre masterpieces like The Thing, Halloween and Escape from New York to his name, John Carpenter has consistently proven his ability to deliver captivating and intense works of cinema that engage the senses and raise the heartbeat, even if they do not quite consult the intellect in the same way many of Carpenter’s contemporaries do.
And that’s precisely what the filmmaker sets out to do as he personally feels that the film medium should not be intellectual but should rather elicit physical and emotional responses from the audience, a task that he’s certainly accomplished across his many decades, not only in the director’s chair but also as a writer and score composer too.
While there’s no doubt that Carpenter has delivered and achieved a creative vision unmistakably his own throughout his career, it’s also true that his films possess a certain edge of guilty pleasure to them, a kind of cinematic treat that he’s no stranger to as an audience member, having previously stated his top guilty pleasure movie choices.
On the list of 17 selections, there’s an interesting inclusion of an American historical epic adventure movie from 1947, directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Unconquered stars Gary Cooper and Paulette Goddard with support from Boris Karloff, Cecil Kellaway, Ward Bond and several other stars, including DeMille’s daughter Katharine.
It tells of the violent battles that occurred between the American colonists and the Native Americans on the frontier of the 18th century, particularly those that happened during the Pontiac’s Rebellion of 1763 around Fort Pitt. The film is brimming with the lavish production expected of DeMille, and the historical narrative is wonderful, married with the breathtaking sets and action sequence for which the extravagant film director became known, serving as a testament to the Golden Age of Hollywood.
“It’s the French and Indian war in glorious three-strip technicolour, and it’s like watching a very expensive stage play,” Carpenter said of Unconquered. “Paulette Goddard is a bond slave from England. Gary Cooper is an Indian fighter. DeMille is a director with a leaden, wooden-fisted style. The extras deliver expository dialogue.”
The director continued, further expressing his admiration for the 1940s classic released by Paramount Pictures. “Boris Karloff plays an Indian Chief. Cooper rescues Goddard with a compass, escapes in a canoe, and hangs on a branch under a waterfall. Cooper also rescues Fort Detroit. All the overacting is so much fun. Awesome.”
Check out the trailer for Unconquered below.
