True Grit (Paramount, 1969)

 

Rooster Cogburn, no grit? Not much!

At number 2 on my list of top ten Westerns (I've just realized I should probably have started at number 10 and worked up but I'm not used to these things) comes True Grit.

Of course the 2010 one the Coen brothers did was splendid but as far as the top ten of all time goes, it has to be the version Henry Hathaway directed for Paramount in 1969.

I've reviewed both before, so by clicking on the links above you can read about the two movies if you want.

I've also talked about the fine novel (and I might do some posts later on some of the finest Western novels) and you can read about that here.

 

 



Why the '69 movie?


1) It is not always that an outstandingly good book makes an outstandingly good film but it was certainly the case with Charles Portis’s novel ‘True Grit’ and the movie True Grit. Both have marvelous dialogue with one great line succeeding another, conversation with a Mark Twain or Bret Harte twang. Both have a gripping, adventurous chase plot and memorable characters. The Marguerite Roberts screenplay for the '69 movie was stupendously good.

2) The movie was one of John Wayne’s greatest performances; only TheSearchers, Red River and The Shootist can match it and it won him his only Oscar. He seemed to have made a conscious decision by the late 60s to play ageing Western dinosaurs. The role suited his age and paunch. (Rooster Cogburn was only in his forties in the book so this was a conscious change). Yet underneath he was still Wayne. The movie works because in the last resort you still believe that “a one-eyed fat man” really could face down four mounted gunmen in a clearing and win out.

3) The support acting. Wayne’s daughter Aissa, Tuesday Weld, Sondra Locke and Mia Farrow were all possibles for the role of Mattie Ross but the part went to Kim Darby and she was terrific. Although 22 and a mother, she caught the feisty young daughter of the book perfectly. Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper do very good jobs as the heavies but probably the best minor part is Strother Martin, magnificent as the horse trader bested by Mattie. HW Gim as Chen Lee and General Sterling Price as himself were also particularly memorable. Only Glen Campbell is weak. As an actor, he made a good singer.

4) Visually the film is very fine. LucienBallard (who did The Wild Bunch the same year) photographed it in Colorado and the Inyo National Forest in the fall and it shines.

5) The Elmer Bernstein music was also, rightly, nominated for an Oscar (pity about the cheesy title song crooned by Campbell but Westerns in those days seemed to feel themselves obliged to have a pop singer in the cast).

6) Henry Hathaway, 71-year-old veteran of countless films, directs magisterially without a hint of sentimentalism. It’s all action and humor and straight down the line Western grit. A truly great cowboy film.

 

There. that's six good reasons.

Why didn't I make it number 1 on my list?

Next we'll look at the stupendous High Noon but first, in the next post, I want to continue looking at some of the great western cinematographers and I'll post something about James Wong Howe.

 

A bientôt, pards.