True Grit (1969)


By the late 1960s John Wayne was getting older and finding fewer and fewer times where he would be cast as anything except John Wayne.  True Grit was a chance to play a character again, not just a caricature.  This also came after one of his lesser-known films, The Hellfighters, and not long after the tone-deaf Vietnam War movie The Green Berets. 

Despite the chance to play Rooster Cogburn in the movie with a script by Marguerite Roberts based on the 1968 novel by Charles Portis, and despite winning his only Best Actor Oscar for his performance, he didn't care for the movie too much.  Henry Hathaway was a difficult director to get along with, Wayne was unhappy that his daughter wasn't cast in the role of Mattie Ross and he felt that he didn't do the character justice.  Still, almost everyone disagreed with him on that, and True Grit is looked at as one of his last great films.

Frank Ross (John Pickard) is the owner of a large tract of land in Arkansas.  He and his hand Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey) travel to Fort Smith to buy some horses.  However, Chaney gets drunk and in a rage kills Frank.  Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) comes to town with another ranch hand, Yarnell (Ken Renard) to collect the body and his belongings.  However, Mattie is out for revenge, wanting to see Chaney hang for what he did.

Though reluctant at first Marshall Rooster Cogburn accepts the job of going after Chaney as he is running with a gang run by Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall), a wanted criminal that is hiding out in Indian Territory.  Despite his insistence that he goes alone Mattie forces herself into the expedition which also comes to include a Texas Ranger named La Boeuf (Glen Campbell).  As they track down the band of criminals Mattie learns some hard lessons about the world outside her sheltered existence, as well as the price of revenge. 

Despite what Wayne thought of his performance the Oscar win was deserved, even though he thought that Richard Burton should have won for his portrayal of Henry VIII in Anne of a Thousand Days.  While that film has some renown it is True Grit that has stood the test of time, even if some of the actual grit had to be toned down.  While Wayne always had a distinctive voice and manner, when he was given a role in a movie like Stagecoach or The Quiet Man that gave him a chance to inhabit the character he showed why he was the star he was.  

On the opposite end of that spectrum is Glen Campbell.  Elvis Presley was supposed to play the role of La Boeuf but Colonel Tom Parker, in his infinite wisdom, priced him out of the running despite the fact the role may have redeemed his acting career.  Instead Campbell, at the height of his early pop-country fame, got to sing the theme and, in his own opinion, thought the job he did was so bad that Wayne won the Oscar because of the comparison.  To be honest he isn't the worst musician I have seen try to act - that may go to either Johnny Cash or Roy Orbison - but his wooden delivery sabotages what should be an interesting counterpoint character to Cogburn.

Kim Darby's performance may be the make or break, though.  It grew on me, and I think that has to do with the fact that Mattie doesn't flinch.  When it comes time to act, she acts, even if that acting may be a bit above her abilities at times.  Despite that she still keeps a positive view of the world and tries to do genuine good despite the evil that she sees all around her.  I also like that Ned Pepper was not a stereotypical western outlaw, and Duvall executes this early role well.  

True Grit was filmed in Colorado and Henry Hathaway takes advantage of the scenery.  It is a beautiful movie from beginning to end, and the recent 4K restoration makes it even more so.  This is a movie most of us saw on Saturday or Sunday afternoons with our fathers on old fuzzy 1970s and 1980s television sets, and even later on videotape, so it's nice to see it in a state that is probably better than when it ran in theaters.  Parts of it feel old-fashioned even for 1969, but that adds a bit to the charm of the movie.  Of course, if one wants to see a more book-accurate version, there is the 2010 Coen Brothers movie, which does the story justice in a much more modern way. 

True Grit (1969)
Time: 128 minutes
Starring: John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, Jeff Corey
Director: Henry Hathaway

 

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