Unforgiven Scene 1 Summary

  • Dusk. Somewhere in the Old West. We're looking at a house, silhouetted against the orange sky of dusk.
  • A guy is digging or chopping something on the far right.
  • A message pops up on the screen. It says:
  • "She was a comely young woman and not without prospects. Therefore it was heartbreaking to her mother that she would enter into marriage with William Munny, a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously vicious and intemperate disposition. When she died, it was not at his hands as her mother might have expected, but of smallpox. That was 1878."
  • Hmm, well this definitely puts a damper on things. Outlaws, bad marriages, and death—sounds like we're definitely in cowboy country.
  • The scene shifts. Snow-covered mountains are in the background, and it's daylight. The screen gives us another message: "Big Whiskey Wyoming, 1880."
  • Storm clouds rumble.
  • The scene shifts again. The storm has started, and it's nighttime.
  • The camera pans over the outside of some buildings in Big Whiskey.
  • The camera shifts again. We're inside, and a guy is having sex with a woman.
  • There's a commotion in a nearby room. A man is yelling at Delilah Fitzgerald, and he's not using very nice words.
  • The guy stops, gets his pants on, and runs over.
  • He gets to the room right as Delilah throws a bucket of water on the man (Quick Mike), who is yelling at his buddy (Davey Bunting) to help him hold the girl down.
  • Everybody is screaming.
  • Quick Mike cuts the woman's face several times before Skinny (the head of this brothel) shows up and puts a gun to his head.
  • The scene shifts, and two men are walking in the rain. One of them is telling the other guy what just happened.
  • Skinny insisted that Little Bill, who we assume is the other guy, come to settle the problem.
  • The men go to the room where the girls are tending their wounded compatriot.
  • Little Bill asks them what happened, and Strawberry Alice tells him that the woman giggled at the size of the man's penis and that's it.
  • Little Bill leaves and heads downstairs, where Mike and Davey are tied up.
  • He looks at them, and tells his assistant to get the bullwhip.
  • Alice can't believe it. She keeps talking until Skinny shuts her up. He also thinks a whipping isn't enough.
  • He shows Bill a contract he has with Delilah, which proves she is a form of a property (a "whore," as Skinny calls her).
  • She's now damaged property.
  • Bill considers for a moment, and then asks the men how many ponies they have.
  • After they tell him, he says that Mike has to bring Skinny five ponies, and Davey two.
  • Alice can't believe it. They're not even going to get a whipping.
  • "I fined them instead," Bill remarks, before warning the cowboys they better bring the ponies, or else…
  • Bill pulls Alice aside, and tries to explain his decision. The cowboys weren't actually bad guys, just "hard-working boys who was foolish."
  • Little Bill clearly doesn't see assaulting "whores" as a very serious offense.
  • Skinny tells Alice to attend to Delilah, and the scene ends.