The Untold Truth Of Unforgiven

“Unforgiven” is widely regarded as one of the best movies of all time for a reason. Its direction, pacing, acting, and script are all on point and neatly trimmed of every single inch of excess fat. Which makes it surprising that in January 1984, long-time Clint Eastwood associate and co-writer of “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” Sonia Chernus, sent Eastwood an internal memo throwing nothing but shade on David Webb Peoples’ script. 

You can view the original memo, in which Chernus’s venomous dislike of the script is palpable, at The Clint Eastwood Archive. Confessing that she only read the first 40 pages — which she claims made her ill — before skimming the rest, Chernus writes that she doesn’t even care how it ends. Calling the script “trash” and an “insult,” she criticizes it for what she calls an absence of believable characters and accuses Peoples of lacking a basic understanding of dramatic writing. 

The director, however, thought differently. In an interview with DGA, Eastwood revealed that he thought the script for “Unforgiven” was great in its original form. At first he asked Peoples to make a few changes, but soon realized that the more he tinkered with it, the more he was in danger of stealing its thunder. Eastwood recounted that he called Peoples and said, “Forget what I said about making those changes. I’m not doing anything except changing the title.”