Classic Review: TRUE GRIT (Henry Hathaway, 1969)

When I heard that the indispensable Coen Brothers were making another version of the classic tale True Grit, which is derived from the Charles Portis novel of the same name, I immediately realized that I had yet to see the original True Grit film, the one starring THE movie star John Wayne, and set out to finally see this shit once and for all. After all, the film did earn The Duke his first and only Academy Award for Best Actor.

What I got outta this flick was a mixed bag. While I will get to Wayne and why I think this movie is, in a way, important, I'll get to the bad stuff first... but after the basic plot...

The film concerns Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) who sets out to avenge her father's death by hiring Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn (Wayne), a crusty old one-eyed federal marshal with an alcohol problem to take her into Indian territory to kill the man responsible, Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey). Along the way, another man hot on Chaney's trail, Le Boeuf (Glen Campbell), joins the gang.

Alright... now the bad stuff... Kim Darby, playing the heroine Mattie Ross, is such an unbearably bad actress that it really annoyed me to no extent during parts of the movie. It just looks like she's trying waaaayyy too hard and in the end the character just becomes superficial. I really didn't give shit what happened to her in the end. There's a part when she falls in a pit with a rattlesnake, and I was actually rooting for the snake to grow into some kind of anaconda, and then after that the scene just cuts and it's The Duke being a badass. However that doesn't turn out to be the case, sans Duke being a badass. As for the character Le Boeuf, the guy is such a mysoginist that it's hard to be on his side at some points. He should've taken a page outta Chris Brown's Book Of Relationships and just tone it down. Whew.

Now with that outta the way, let me get to Wayne. In the context of his career, Rooster Cogburn would've just gone down as another one of The Duke's Western characters. But in the context of the times the film was made in, the performance is a revelation. That's why I think this is an important film in this regard. True Grit is an example of "classic" Hollywood filmmaking. You have a director, Henry Hathaway, who's been in the business since the silent era and one classically trained actor in Wayne. Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper star in True Grit as well, and they are two followers of the Method acting, which revolutionized screen performances, and they clash with Wayne's simple approach. Even in 1969, when this film was released, you had Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, with its extreme bloody violence and shocking editing and direction, it took films into a whole new direction. That's why I think when they gave Wayne the Oscar for this film, they weren't just awarding him but a whole era of actors that was slowly but surely fading away. Even the Rooster Cogburn character could represent this movement. It truly was an end of an era. 

That being said, Wayne looks like he really is having a lot of fun. He's funny and touching as the alcoholic Cogburn, and it was a good move to award him for this movie. Some scenes in the film are great, and this film could've been a masterpiece if the spirit of those scenes carried throughout the entire film. I'm really looking forward to what the Coens do with it now.

BOTTOM LINE: If you're a die-hard fan of The Duke, want a film history lesson, or just in the mood for a light adventure, see it. Otherwise, you can afford to skip it.