True Grit (1969)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Henry Hathaway

Writers:

Charles Portis (novel)
Marguerite Roberts (screenplay)

Release Date:

11 June 1969 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Western | Drama

Tagline:

The strangest trio ever to track a killer.

Plot:

A drunken, hard-nosed U.S. Marshal and a Texas Ranger help a stubborn young woman track down her father's murderer in Indian territory.

Plot Keywords:

Texas | Texas Ranger | Marshal | Justice | U.S. Marshal

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 6 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

John Wayne	...	Marshall Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn
Glen Campbell	...	La Boeuf
Kim Darby	...	Mattie Ross
Jeremy Slate	...	Emmett Quincy
Robert Duvall	...	Ned Pepper
Dennis Hopper	...	Moon
Alfred Ryder	...	Mr. Goudy (Defense attorney)
Strother Martin	...	Colonel G. Stonehill
Jeff Corey	...	Tom Chaney
Ron Soble	...	Capt. Boots Finch
John Fiedler	...	Lawyer Daggett
James Westerfield	...	Judge Parker
John Doucette	...	Sheriff
Donald Woods	...	Barlow
Edith Atwater	...	Mrs. Floyd

Runtime:

128 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Canada:PG (Manitoba) | USA:G (edited for re-rating) | USA:M (original rating) | Australia:M (TV rating) | Iceland:12 | Brazil:14 | Finland:K-15 (2002) (DVD) | Finland:K-16 (cut) (1969) (theatrical) | Australia:PG | Spain:T | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | West Germany:12 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Bishop, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

John Wayne reportedly chased costar Dennis Hopper around Paramount with a loaded gun. Hopper had to hide in Glen Campbell's dressing room until Wayne cooled down.

Goofs:

Continuity: After La Boeuf succumbs to his head injury and falls off his horse, Rooster turns him over to look at his face. La Boeuf rolls over with his feet crossed. As Rooster and Mattie are riding off and look back at him, his feet are now splayed out.

Quotes:

Mattie Ross: Now I know you can drink whiskey and I saw you kill a rat, but all the rest has been talk. I'm not paying for talk. I can get all the talk I need at the Monarch Boarding House.
Rooster Cogburn: I ought to paddle your rump!
Mattie Ross: I don't know how you propose to do that from that hog wallow you're sunk into. If I smelled as bad as you I wouldn't live near people.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Good Eats: True Grits (#8.10)" (2004)

Soundtrack:

True Grit

By God, he doesn't remind me of me!

First on UK BBC1 on Christmas Day 1974 and shown again many times since has meant I never bothered taping this classic - now I've seen it umpteen times it still leaves me smiling. The relentlessly eccentric badinage between the 3 main characters and others should be enough to make anyone smile, even with a little violence and a few serious points raised along the way.

A tough man on a tough hunt for a gang of toughs - it's John Wayne's film all the way, with this he passed into his last phase in the saddle with a continuous wink at the cowboy parody he had become and which no-one else will ever match. By now after 40 years he was an American legend, your giant avuncular instant-lawman starring in his next horse opera - True Grit would really be nothing special without him, with the fat old man it's a nice Western comedy. We in the audience knew he had Grit before he came on, Kim Darby was just too slow on the uptake. I never understood why the script was so uncharitable to the Texican horse-killing son of a bitch Campbell, he's belittled right up to the scenes in Mattie's family graveyard.

Overall a shot in the arm (or leg!) if seen every few years - even in 1969 entertaining action films could still be made!