49 Fun Facts About Unforgiven

Which disease killed William Munny's wife before the events of Unforgiven?

Smallpox took her in 1878, the opening text says, adding that her mother had expected her to die at Munny's own hands instead.

Unforgiven was Clint Eastwood's first Western since which film?

Pale Rider came out seven years earlier, in 1985; Eastwood took an option on the Unforgiven script around then and let it wait for years.

Which animals is William Munny struggling to raise on his Kansas farm as Unforgiven begins?

Hogs, and they are dying of fever: Munny keeps falling in the mud of the pen as he tries to separate the sick animals from the healthy.

Which actor plays Sheriff 'Little Bill' Daggett in Unforgiven?

Gene Hackman's sheriff keeps the peace by beating visiting gunmen senseless in the street, a performance that won him his second Oscar.

Which actor plays Ned Logan, William Munny's old partner in Unforgiven?

Morgan Freeman's Ned is a crack shot with a Spencer rifle who finds, when the moment comes, that he can no longer kill a man.

Which actor plays the British gunfighter English Bob in Unforgiven?

Richard Harris's gunfighter arrives lecturing Americans on royalty and leaves beaten and jailed, cursing the townsfolk as 'bloody savages'.

Who wrote the screenplay for Unforgiven?

David Webb Peoples wrote it in 1976, when Westerns were out of fashion, and then waited some fifteen years to see it filmed.

Which title did the Unforgiven script carry on its 1984 production draft?

The William Munny Killings was itself a second thought: the 1976 script began life under the blunter title The Cut-Whore Killings.

Which director optioned the Unforgiven script before Clint Eastwood but could not find the money to make it?

Francis Ford Coppola took it around without finding financing; Eastwood then picked it up and, the writer recalled, twice promised to make it 'next year'.

What did Eastwood's own story editor urge him to do with the Unforgiven script?

Get rid of it fast, wrote Sonia Chernus, who called the script trash; Eastwood filmed it anyway, and it was nominated for the screenplay Oscar.

In which fictional Wyoming town is Unforgiven set?

Big Whiskey never existed: production designer Henry Bumstead's crew built the whole town as a set on remote ranch land.

How much is the bounty Unforgiven's prostitutes offer for the two cowboys' deaths?

$1,000 is what the brothel's women pool from their savings after Little Bill lets the two cowboys off without so much as a whipping.

Which cowboy slashes Delilah Fitzgerald's face, setting the plot of Unforgiven in motion?

Quick Mike takes a knife to her because she giggled at him; his partner cut no one, yet is punished alongside him.

In Unforgiven, what does Little Bill make the two cowboys hand over as punishment for attacking Delilah?

Ponies, seven in all, which go to her employer Skinny as payment for 'damaged property'; Delilah gets nothing, so the women raise a bounty.

Which actress plays Strawberry Alice, who organises the bounty in Unforgiven?

Frances Fisher's Alice explodes at Little Bill's leniency, asking 'You ain't even gonna whip 'em?', then turns the women's savings into a price on two heads.

What is the nickname of the boastful young would-be bounty hunter who recruits Munny in Unforgiven?

The Schofield Kid takes his name from his Smith & Wesson revolver, but he is too near-sighted to shoot far and, it turns out, has never killed anyone.

What is Sheriff Little Bill, a famously bad carpenter, building in his spare time in Unforgiven?

A house, with not one straight angle in it, his deputies say; the roof leaks, and 'I was building a house' is among his dying words.

Who plays W. W. Beauchamp, the dime-novel biographer who arrives with English Bob in Unforgiven?

Saul Rubinek's Beauchamp stays on after Bob is run out of town, transferring his hero-worship to Little Bill, who debunks his Wild West tales.

Which town ordinance gives Little Bill his excuse to beat English Bob on arrival in Unforgiven?

A ban on carrying guns is posted at the town limits; Bob ignores it, and Little Bill makes his beating a public warning to other bounty hunters.

In Unforgiven, what does Little Bill say matters most for a gunfighter?

Staying cool-headed under fire beats a quick draw, he tells Beauchamp: a man who keeps his head will likely kill a faster one who hurries.

Who is the first of Unforgiven's two wanted cowboys to be killed, shot by Munny after Ned falters?

Davey Bunting had tried to make amends to the women, who drove him off; Ned cannot bring himself to finish him, so Munny does.

In Unforgiven, where does the Kid shoot the cowboy who did the slashing?

In an outhouse, on Munny's instructions: afterwards the Kid breaks down, admits it was his first killing and gives up his gun for good.

What happens to Ned Logan in Unforgiven?

Little Bill flogs him to death trying to learn where his partners are, though Ned had already quit the hunt without killing anyone.

Whom does Munny shoot first on entering the saloon in Unforgiven's finale, and why?

Skinny, for displaying Ned's corpse outside his saloon: the owner is unarmed, and Munny says he should have armed himself before decorating the place with his friend.

Which weapon misfires when Munny aims it at Little Bill in Unforgiven's finale?

A shotgun: when it misfires Munny hurls it at the sheriff and draws a revolver, later telling Beauchamp he was simply lucky in the order.

According to Unforgiven's closing title card, where may Munny have moved with his children?

San Francisco is where the closing card says he was rumoured to have prospered in dry goods, leaving his late wife's mother none the wiser about the marriage.

Which film tied Unforgiven for the most Oscar nominations for 1992?

Howards End matched its nine nominations, but the period drama lost Best Picture to a Western, a genre that had won only twice before.

In Unforgiven, English Bob's biography calls him 'the Duke of Death'; how does Little Bill misread 'Duke'?

Duck is how the sheriff reads it, and he keeps it up while telling the biographer the true story: a drunk Bob shot a man whose pistol had blown up in his hand.

Besides Picture, Director and Supporting Actor, which fourth Oscar did Unforgiven win?

Film Editing went to Joel Cox, Eastwood's regular editor, while the script Eastwood had held for years lost its category to The Crying Game.

Unforgiven was only the third Western to win Best Picture; which two came before it?

Cimarron and Dances with Wolves stood almost sixty years apart: after the 1931 winner the genre went without the top prize until 1990, then took it twice in three years.

Gene Hackman's Oscar for Unforgiven was his second; which film had won him his first?

The French Connection won him Best Actor as 'Popeye' Doyle, the detective who commandeers a stranger's car to chase a hitman's elevated train through Brooklyn.

To which two directors is Unforgiven dedicated in its end credits?

Sergio Leone and Don Siegel appear only as 'Dedicated to Sergio and Don', the two directors Eastwood counted as his mentors; Leone's Italian Westerns had made him a star.

Where was most of Unforgiven filmed, standing in for 1880s Wyoming?

Alberta, Canada supplied the ranch land where the town was built from scratch; only the last two weeks moved south, to California, for the train scenes.

Which Hollywood studio released Unforgiven in 1992?

Warner Bros. had watched Eastwood's previous three films disappoint at the box office; this one grossed about $159 million worldwide.

Unforgiven's $15 million opening set an August record that was broken a year later by which film?

The Fugitive opened to $23.8 million in August 1993. By then Unforgiven's Oscar wins had already sent it back into the top ten, eight months after release.

Which John Ford film topped the AFI's 2008 Westerns list, where Unforgiven ranked fourth?

The Searchers, which failed to draw a single Oscar nomination on its release, led the list; Unforgiven, with four Oscars, was the only film in the top five made after 1960.

Which actor took Clint Eastwood's role in the 2013 Japanese remake of Unforgiven?

Ken Watanabe plays Jubei the Killer, a retired swordsman turned struggling farmer, in a version that swaps six-shooters for swords but keeps the plot.

A 1997 study in Poetics Today treated Unforgiven as a reading of which ancient epic?

The Iliad turns on the same hinge: Achilles sits out the war until his companion Patroclus is killed, then returns to the slaughter, as Munny does for Ned.

Which institution added Unforgiven to its National Film Registry in 2004?

Library of Congress rules keep a film off the registry until it is ten years old; Unforgiven went in after twelve, judged culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

By Eastwood's account, how did Unforgiven's English Bob actor react when phoned with the part?

Took it for a prank: Eastwood recalled that he was watching High Plains Drifter when the phone rang, and that he agreed without waiting for a script.

News of which president's shooting is in the papers as English Bob rides the train in Unforgiven?

James Garfield has just been shot, which lets Bob lecture his fellow passengers that nobody would fire on a king: the 'aura of royalty', he says, would spoil the aim.

Which actor beat Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven performance to the Best Actor Oscar for 1992?

Al Pacino won for Scent of a Woman, his first Oscar after six earlier nominations had come to nothing; Eastwood still went home with Best Picture and Best Director.

In Unforgiven, what does Munny start doing again on learning how Ned died, a sign the old killer is back?

Drinking, for the first time in years: he reaches for the bottle as he hears the news, then rides into town alone to kill.

Why did Unforgiven's Little Bill actor reportedly refuse the part at first?

His daughters disliked his violent roles, the film's writer later recalled; Eastwood visited him and argued the story was no celebration of violence.

Unforgiven's train scenes used a California railway also seen in which film?

Back to the Future Part III filmed on the same Sierra line, and the steam engine that pushes Doc Brown's DeLorean to 88 mph also appears in Unforgiven.

What is the title of Unforgiven's main musical piece, composed by Clint Eastwood himself?

Claudia's Theme is named for Munny's dead wife, whose grave he visits before riding out; Lennie Niehaus wrote the rest of the score.

Unforgiven's screenwriter had earlier co-written which science-fiction film, released ten years before it?

Blade Runner credits him alongside Hampton Fancher, whose script he was hired to rework; a recut version returned to cinemas in September 1992, while Unforgiven was still playing.

In which historical period is the 2013 Japanese remake of Unforgiven set?

Meiji-era Hokkaido stands in for Wyoming: director Lee Sang-il turns the retired outlaw into an ex-samurai swordsman scratching a living from a failing farm.

Riding out in Unforgiven's finale, what does Munny order the townsfolk to do?

Bury Ned properly, he shouts from the saddle, and never again harm the women, or he will come back and kill every one of them.