I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!
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The novel True Grit by Charles McColl Portis (above), born December 28, 1933 in El Dorado, Arkansas, came out in 1968 and was very rapidly made into a film by Paramount. Not surprisingly, for it is an outstanding book, one of the best Western novels ever written.
I have just re-read it because the Coen brothers have said that they made their recent film True Grit from the novel rather than as a remake of the 1969 movie True Grit, and I wanted to prepare for seeing the new film, which is not yet out here in France, where I live. It will be showing at the Berlin Film Festival in February and then later on general release.
I was also curious to remind myself how close the screenplay of the 1969 film had been to the original novel, and I picked it up again too for the sheer pleasure of re-reading a marvelously enjoyable book after all these years.
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The plot, as you know, is a fairly straightforward Western chase/revenge one, set in Arkansas around 1878. It’s not that remarkable. What makes the book is firstly the sheer power of the characters, especially the two principals Mattie Ross and Reuben 'Rooster' Cogburn, and secondly the color and brio of the language.

Mattie is doubtless a tight-fisted, mean old lady but what she demonstrates she has (in spades) is spirit. She has, in fact, true grit, as much as Rooster does. One line invented for the film, and well invented, is when Mattie, prevented from using the ferry, plunges into the freezing river on her pony to swim across and Rooster remarks to LaBoeuf, “By God, she reminds me of me!”
Rooster is of course a great literary creation, a Dickensian figure of quite enormous stature. I have heard it said that John Wayne was awarded his only Oscar for this film as a recognition of a great career rather than for a remarkable performance in this particular film. What nonsense. In one of his best ever performances, Wayne (who yes, should have won an Academy Award ages before) was outstanding as Rooster and brought that wonderful character fully to life. In the book Rooster is in his early 40s and Wayne of course was over 60 but that's fine: Wayne stamps the part with his own persona. It is a great comic performance.
The sergeant of Texas Rangers LaBoeuf (pronounced, Mattie tells us, “la beef”) is a slightly grayer character in the book and, it must be said, a weak link in the film. 1960s Westerns seemed almost under an obligation to have a pop singer in the cast. As actors, they usually made good singers. At least Campbell was from Arkansas. But other players are strongly delineated and memorable: the outlaw Lucky Ned Pepper and his gang (even the bit parts are strong), Lawyer Daggett (what a stroke of genius to cast diminutive John Fiedler in 1969), and best of all Colonel Stonehill, the miserable stock trader whom Mattie bests at his own game. Even characters who do not appear but are only mentioned, such as Marshal Columbus Potter, seem to us alive and real. In later life, Mattie meets Cole Younger and Frank James. She captures them brilliantly in five lines.
The '69 film is so close to the book that there is little to criticize. Only the ending of the film departs significantly from the novel and, in the film, is certainly too sugary and out of character. The change of the fate of LaBoeuf is not easy to explain; what was gained by that in the film? I much prefer the ending of the book as far as Rooster is concerned and very much hope the Coen brothers have treated that as Portis did.
It’s not often that you get a five-star Western, one you adore, and find that the book it was based on is also a great novel. It happens (Little Big Man, Shane, Lonesome Dove, others) but it’s rare. In the case of True Grit, the book and film are equals, at least judging by the 1969 movie. You have here a must-read and a must-see. And the great thing about them both is that you can re-read and re-see them and get almost as much entertainment out of them as you did the first time round.
You haven't read it? Get on to amazon at once!