TRUE GRIT 1969

I have to make two things clear from the start: I am not a fan of westerns and I’m REALLY not a fan of John Wayne. Having firmly established that fact, I’m afraid I must also lay simultaneous claim to the patently contradictory declaration that True Grit — incontestably both a western and a John Wayne film — is one of my all-time favorite movies.

I've loved movies since I was a kid, but even then, there were only two kinds of films I didn't care for: westerns and war movies. Seeing as these genres exemplified virtually the entire John Wayne oeuvre, by the time True Grit appeared at the local movie house on a double bill with The Odd Couple back in 1969 (I was a big fan of Jack Lemmon), I was 12 years old and had yet to ever see a John Wayne movie. Well, as luck would have it, my first John Wayne movie was what I consider (then, and still to this day) his best. True Grit is an engagingly robust and entertaining western adventure that is satisfying in all the ways that a good, old-fashioned, "popcorn movie" should be.

John Wayne as Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn

Kim Darby as Mattie Ross

Glen Campbell as LaBoeuf

The by-now familiar story concerns the efforts of a headstrong girl (the appealingly androgynous Kim Darby, whose haircut here makes her look like a somewhat more masculine Justin Bieber) to bring to justice the murderer of her father. To assist her in her quest she enlists the aid of a boozy, trigger-happy U.S. Marshal named Rooster Cogburn (Wayne) and a chubby-cheeked Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf (the genial singing star Glen Campbell, whose acting style consists of scrunching up his face a lot).

So what was it about True Grit that made it different from the rest of the westerns that flooded the TV and movie screens back in the 1960s?

Well, for starters it has a great "quest" storyline...(something akin to a frontier The Wizard of Oz or prairie Alice in Wonderland) populated with colorful characters, crackling dialog, and centered on a young protagonist with whom a kid could both identify and root for. Its cinematography is fittingly crisp and offers up a storybook vision of the old west— all breathtaking mountain vistas and majestic trees. It has a sweeping Elmer Bernstein "Aaron Copland meets the Marlboro Man" score of rousing, orchestrated music that imbues every scene with the thrust of American myth. And, perhaps best of all, in its subtle integration of emancipated women, Indigenous Americans, African-Americans, and Chinese into the fabric of everyday western life, it is a refreshingly modern take on an over-exhausted genre.

Mattie Ross (toting her father's gun) tries to convince Marshal Cogburn that she means business.

The first time I saw True Grit it played out for me like a thrill-a-minute tall-tale told around a campfire at night. It engaged me from its first frames to its last, doling out equal parts thrills, laughs, and heart. To this day I can watch the film, aware of its artificiality and inauthenticity, yet powerless and unwilling to allow such trivial realities to mar the enjoyment I find in the likable characters, ofttimes hilarious dialog, and terrific performances. Much like 1965s Cat Ballou, True Grit is the perfect western for people who don't like westerns.

Rooster- "By God! She reminds me of me!"

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM
Part of the charm of True Grit is its gentle send-up of the John Wayne myth. Outwardly the story of a young girl's pursuit of justice, running beneath the surface of True Grit is also a story about a man out of step with the times. In the tamed West of True Grit - a West of lawyers, evolving women's roles, and boarding houses that eschew spurs in the dining room, Rooster Cogburn is something of a dinosaur. A symbol of a lawless time that civilized townsfolk would be happy to put behind them. In the America of 1969 John Wayne was also a bit of a dinosaur. His ultra-conservative screen image, pro-war politics, and ofttimes moronic offscreen statements on racial issues alienated him from the very demographic that was emerging as the core movie-going audience of the New Hollywood era — the young, college-age crowd. After the gung-ho embarrassment that was his Vietnam-era war film The Green Berets (a 1968 movie I had the misfortune of watching several decades later), Wayne gets a chance at big-screen redemption in True Grit.

John Wayne's right eye, outacting Glen Campbell

In True Grit John Wayne gives a bravely self-deprecating performance, allowing himself to be called a fat, slovenly, kill-happy, sexist drunk by most of the cast for a good deal of the picture. His machismo is met and bested in nearly every scene by the resourceful Kim Darby, and even Glen Campbell, while not really anybody's idea of a western hero, cuts a more dashing figure of youth and vitality. This subtle peeling away of the anachronistic myth of the Great White Frontiersman has the not-undesired effect of making Wayne into a more sympathetic and appealing character.

Rooster meets his match.

Indeed, Wayne has so much abuse heaped on his head in the film that by the time of the climactic gun battle where he single-handedly takes on four desperadoes while wielding a pistol, a rifle, and holding his horse's reins in his teeth; the audience is practically on its feet cheering, happy to see a moment of old-school Wayne in this sea of late'60s western revisionism.

"No grit? Rooster Cogburn? Not much!"

PERFORMANCES

I've never held with the accepted belief that John Wayne so overpowers the film that the story shifts focus from Darby's Mattie Ross to Wayne's Rooster Cogburn the moment he appears. I'm sure that's what Wayne fans experience, but as good as Wayne is (and he's VERY good. I can't imagine how he made that one eye so expressive!) the under-appreciated and very talented Kim Darby is the main reason I like the film so much.

Her performance is surprisingly strong and she holds the narrative thread together by investing her character's single-minded indomitability with a deep sense of loss and pugnacious vulnerability. Just watch how she matches the energy and skill of veterans like Wayne and Strother Martin in their scenes together. Much like Mattie Ross, Darby refuses to be shunted off to the sidelines by the seasoned, all-male cast, and brilliantly holds her own. Her gutsy yet gentle portrayal also serves to smooth over and humanize all the macho gunplay and violence that often becomes so repetitious and tiresome in westerns.

Lightening failed to strike twice for Darby and Campell who were reteamed a year later in Norwood, a forgotten film also based on a Charles Portis novel and adapted by Marguerite Roberts.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
For a city boy like me, a western couldn't look more like a western than True Grit. A huge departure from the B&W TV westerns of the day, all of which seemed to use the same fake-looking studio backlot town, True Grit's use of spectacular, eye-popping natural locations adds both a visual lushness and a heroic scope.
With traditional western mythology at the core of the narrative, director Henry Hathaway treats the locations as though they are characters in the story. Not only do the mountains and streams provide colorful backdrop, but each scene that plays out in front of one of these magnificent landscapes seems to pay homage to decades of western (movie) tradition. And for those purists who would balk at the Colorado Rockies standing in for the plains of Arkansas and Oklahoma...who really expects to find documentary authenticity in a movie where we're asked to believe four hardened gunmen all manage to miss hitting a sizable target like Rooster Cogburn in a four-against-one faceoff?

THE STUFF OF DREAMS
Movies are a visual medium to be sure, but there's nothing like a well-written story. The source novel by Charles Portis is a great bit of folkloric storytelling brought to vivid life on the screen by Marguerite Roberts. The dialog, the characters, and even the simple structure of the plot are perfection itself. So many films today suffer from over-plotting. Ruled by an audience's short attention span, they trip themselves up with A, B & even C storylines; subplots piled upon subplots, and with all this, they still never make much sense. Here you have a direct narrative with three acts, rising action, character arc, sentimentality, heroism, and probably one of the most satisfyingly-resolved conclusions of a western ever put to film. Great storytelling, great moviemaking.

Consummate character actor Strother Martin is memorable in his scenes as the exasperated auctioneer who has one too many encounters with the headstrong Mattie Ross

You have to look far to find a more menacing western villain than Robert Duvall as "Lucky" Ned Pepper

I have not yet seen the Coen brothers' 2010 remake, but I am very much looking forward to the DVD release. As stated, I think the source novel is foolproof, and any film which claims to hew closely to it is on a winning track from the get-go. I generally tend not to be too fond of remakes, but in this case, I am eager to see these great characters interpreted by a new generation of actors and interpreted perhaps with a new sensibility. The original True Grit will always be special to me and irreplaceable in my memories, but it does come with a lot of baggage (not only the John Wayne issue but the casting of the then-immensely popular Glen Campbell was blatant stunt-casting and an obvious box-office bid). It's been a while now and I think it's high time I see another western...who cares if it's the same one?

"Well, come see a fat old man sometime!"

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2011