True Grit (1969 film)

True Grit is a 1969 American western Technicolor film written by Marguerite Roberts and directed by Henry Hathaway. The picture is the first adaptation of Charles Portis' 1968 novel True Grit. John Wayne stars as U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn and won his only Academy Award for his performance in this film. Wayne reprised his role as Cogburn in the 1975 sequel Rooster Cogburn. Historians believe Rooster was based on deputy U.S. marshal Heck Thomas, who brought in some of the toughest outlaws. The supporting cast features Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper and Strother Martin.



Contents
[hide]  *1 Plot  ==Plot[ edit] == Frank Ross (John Pickard) is murdered by his hired hand, Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey). Ross' daughter, Mattie (Kim Darby), hires aging U.S. Marshal Reuben "Rooster" J. Cogburn (John Wayne). Mattie has heard that Cogburn has "true grit". She offers Rooster $100 and gives him a down payment to track and capture Chaney, who has taken up with "Lucky" Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall).
 * 2 Cast
 * 3 Production
 * 4 Reception
 * 4.1 Awards and nominations
 * 5 Differences from the novel
 * 6 Sequels and other film versions
 * 7 See also
 * 8 Notes
 * 9 External links

The pair must head into Indian Territory (Oklahoma). Mattie buys a horse after collecting money from a horse trader (Strother Martin). They are joined by a young Texas Ranger, La Boeuf (Glen Campbell). Mattie dislikes the boastful La Boeuf and refuses his assistance, but the ranger joins forces with Cogburn. The two try to abandon Mattie, but she persists and joins their posse.

After several days, the three plan to spend the night at a cabin which Cogburn believes to be empty. However, they discover two horse theives there named Emmett Quincy (Jeremy Slate) and Moon (Dennis Hopper) who are waiting for Pepper. Moon's leg is injured and Cogburn uses the injury as leverage to get information about Pepper from them. To prevent Moon from telling too much, Quincy stabs Moon, and Cogburn kills Quincy. Before Moon dies, he tells Cogburn that Pepper and his gang are due at the hideout that night, so the posse lays a trap.

The following morning, Pepper and his men arrive at the hideout. A shootout ensues, during which Cogburn and La Boeuf kill two of the gang, but Pepper and the rest escape. Cogburn, La Boeuf and Mattie make their way to McAlester's store, where the marshal arranges for the dead to be buried. Cogburn tries to persuade Mattie to stay at McAlester's, but she refuses. La Boeuf now supports her decision to keep going.

The three continue their pursuit. Mattie finds herself face-to-face with Chaney. She shoots him, calling out to her partners. Pepper and his gang capture her, and he forces Cogburn and La Boeuf to abandon the girl.

Cogburn doubles back and attacks Pepper and his gang. La Boeuf finds Mattie and moves Chaney to an area he thinks is secure. La Boeuf and Mattie move to an outcropping and watch as a mounted Cogburn confronts Ned and his three gang members. Cogburn gives Pepper a choice between getting killed or surrendering and being hanged. Rooster kills three of the gang and wounds Pepper, but Ned shoots Rooster's horse, which falls, trapping Rooster's leg under the wounded horse. As Pepper prepares to kill Rooster, La Boeuf shoots Pepper, killing him.

As La Boeuf and Mattie return to Pepper's camp, Chaney comes out from behind a tree and strikes La Boeuf in the head with a rock, knocking him unconscious. Mattie shoots and wounds Chaney in the arm but, driven back from the recoil, falls into a pit. Cogburn arrives and shoots Chaney. As Cogburn descends into the pit on a rope to retrieve Mattie, she is bitten by a rattlesnake. La Boeuf, thought to have been killed, peers over the pit and helps them get out. After Mattie and Cogburn are safely out of the pit, La Boeuf dies from his wound.

Mattie and Cogburn are forced to leave La Boeuf's body behind as they race to get help for Mattie. They both ride Mattie’s horse, but the overloaded horse collapses before they reach their destination. Undaunted, Cogburn gathers Mattie in his arms and carries her until they encounter some horsemen with a wagon. Cogburn borrows their wagon, and they ride it to McAlester's. There, an Indian doctor treats Mattie's snakebite.

Days later, Mattie's attorney, J. Noble Daggett (John Fiedler) arrives. He pays Cogburn a reward for Chaney's capture.

Weeks later, Mattie, arm in a sling, is recovered and at home. She promises Cogburn he can be buried next to her family after his death. Cogburn reluctantly accepts, hoping his burial will not come too soon. He leaves, jumping over a fence with his new horse to disprove her claim that he was too old and fat, and heads off into the valley below. ==Cast<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Darby, Campbell and Duvall are the last surviving primary cast members. ==Production<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Filming took place mainly in Ouray County, Colorado, in the vicinity of Ridgway (now the home of the True Grit Cafe), around the town of Montrose (Montrose County), and the town of Ouray.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[2] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ShepherdSlatzerGrayson-p274_3-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[3] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[4]  (The script maintains the novel's references to place names in Arkansas and Oklahoma, in dramatic contrast to the Colorado topography.) The courtroom scenes were filmed at Ouray County Courthouse in Ouray.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-5" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[5] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-6" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[6]
 * John Wayne as Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn
 * Kim Darby as Mattie Ross
 * Glen Campbell as La Boeuf
 * Jeremy Slate as Emmett Quincy
 * Robert Duvall as Lucky Ned Pepper
 * Dennis Hopper as Moon
 * Strother Martin as Col. G. Stonehill
 * Jeff Corey as Tom Chaney
 * Donald Woods as Barlow
 * John Fiedler as Lawyer Daggett
 * James Westerfield as Judge Parker
 * Jay Silverheels as Condemned Man at Hanging
 * Hank Worden as Undertaker

Ouray County Courthouse, constructed in 1888.<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The scenes that take place at the "dugout" and along the creek where Pierce and Moon are killed, as well as the scene where Rooster carries Mattie on her horse Little Blackie after the snakebite, were filmed at Hot Creek on the east side of the Sierra Nevada near the town of Mammoth Lakes, California. Mount Morrison and Laurel Mountainform the backdrop above the creek. This location was also used in North to Alaska.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ShepherdSlatzerGrayson-p274_3-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[3]  Filming was done from September to December 1968.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-7" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[7]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Mia Farrow was originally cast as Mattie and was keen on the role. However, prior to filming she made a film in England with Robert Mitchum, who advised her not to work with director Henry Hathaway because he was "cantankerous." Farrow asked producer Hal B. Wallis to replace Hathaway with Roman Polanski, who had directed Farrow in Rosemary's Baby, but Wallis refused. Farrow quit the role, which was then offered to Sondra Locke andTuesday Weld, both of whom turned it down. John Wayne met Karen Carpenter at a talent show he was hosting and recommended her for the part, though the producers decided against it because she had no acting experience. Wayne had also lobbied for his daughter Aissa to win the part. After considering Sally Field, the role went to Kim Darby.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-8" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[8]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Elvis Presley was the original choice for LaBoeuf but the producers turned him down when his agent demanded top-billing over both Wayne and Darby. Glen Campbellwas then cast instead. Wayne began lobbying for the part of Rooster Cogburn after reading the novel by Charles Portis.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Wayne called Marguerite Roberts' script "the best script he had ever read," and was instrumental in getting her script approved and credited to her name as Roberts had been blacklisted for alleged leftist affiliations years before. This came in spite of Wayne's own right-wing ideals.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ShepherdSlatzerGrayson-p274_3-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[3]  He particularly liked the scene with Darby where Rooster tells Mattie about his life in Illinois (where he has a restaurant, his wife Nola leaves him because of his degenerate friends, and has a clumsy son named Horace), calling it "about the best scene I ever did."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-9" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[9]  Garry Wills notes in his book, John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity, that Wayne's performance as Rooster Cogburn bears close similarities to the way Wallace Beery portrayed characters in the 1930s and 1940s, an inspired if surprising choice on Wayne's part. Wills comments that it's difficult for one actor to imitate another for the entire length of a movie and that the Beery mannerisms temporarily recede during the aforementioned scene in which Cogburn discusses his wife and child.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Wills-p286_10-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[10]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Veteran John Wayne stunt-double Chuck Hayward does the stunt in the meadow, where "Bo" goes down, on his long time horse Twinkle Toes.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-SRWF_11-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[11]  In the last scene, Mattie gives Rooster her father's gun. She comments that he's gotten a tall horse, as she expected he would. He notes that his new horse can jump a four-rail fence. Then she admonishes him, "You're too old and fat to be jumping horses." Rooster responds with a smile, saying, "Well, come see a fat old man sometime," and jumps his new horse over a fence. Although many of Wayne's stunts over the years were done by Hayward and Chuck Roberson, it is Wayne on Twinkle Toes going over the fence.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-SRWF_11-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[11]  Darby's stunts were done by Polly Burson.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-12" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[12]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The horse shown during the final scene (before he jumps the fence on Twinkle Toes) of True Grit was Dollor, a two-year-old (in 1969) chestnut Quarter horse gelding, Dollor ('Ole Dollor) had been Wayne's favorite horse for 10 years. Wayne fell in love with the horse, which would carry him through several more Westerns, including his final movie, The Shootist. Wayne had Dollor written into the script of The Shootist because of his love for the horse; it was a condition for him working on the project. Wayne would not let anyone else ride the horse, the lone exception being Robert Wagner, who rode the horse in a segment of the Hart to Hart television show, after Wayne's death.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-13" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[13] ==Reception<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The cast and crew were initially skeptical about the film. John Wayne, in particular, was disappointed with the finished result. He hated Kim Darby's performance, saying that they hardly spoke off-camera and that she behaved inappropriately on the set. For his part, Henry Hathaway hated the casting and performance of Glen Campbell, whom he felt had been pushed on him by the studio to get a hit with the film's title song. Both Wayne and Hathaway had difficulties with Robert Duvall, with the director having constant shouting matches with his supporting actor and Duvall and Wayne nearly coming to blows.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">The film earned an estimated $11.5 million in rentals at the North American box office during its first year of release.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-14" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[14]  As of May 2014, the film maintains a rating of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 48 reviews. ===Awards and nominations<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] === <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">John Wayne won a Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Actor. Upon accepting his Oscar, Wayne said, "Wow! If I'd known that, I'd have put that patch on 35 years earlier."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-15" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[15]  The title song, by composer Elmer Bernstein and lyricist Don Black, and sung by Glen Campbell, who co-starred in the movie, received nominations for both the Academy Award for Best Song and the Golden Globe. ==Differences from the novel<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == See also: True Grit (novel)<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Unlike the book, the movie doesn’t introduce Mattie as an old woman telling a story of her childhood, but instead begins and ends in late 1880, when Mattie is 14. In the book, Mattie remains the central character throughout; in the movie Rooster Cogburn gets an equal share of the limelight. The film also downplays the novel's biblical tone and adds a hint of romance between Mattie and La Boeuf. La Boeuf also does not die in the novel, but survives his head injury. Another significant difference from Portis' tale is that Mattie has her arm amputated as a result of the rattlesnake attack, in contrast to the final scene in the film where Mattie is seen with only a sling on her arm—indicating that she is recovering from the snake bites and intact physically. The novel's conclusion makes the reader aware that the story has been recounted by Mattie as an elderly, one-armed woman who never married. Also in the book, Mattie shoots Chaney in the head with her Dragoon but he survives until Rooster hits him with the butt of his rifle and he falls into the pit. In the movie, Rooster shoots Chaney.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In the book and both this movie and the 2010 film version, Mattie's Colt Dragoon misfires at a critical moment. The book explains this as, while drunk, Rooster used it to shoot a rat. Mattie insisted he re-load the two chambers fired, which he did, while still drunk, using defective old caps from a box under his bed. In the 1969 film, Rooster shoots the rat with his own Peacemaker, removing the reloading scene. Thus, during the scene where the Dragoon misfires it is unfairly portrayed as an unreliable weapon. However, during the graveyard scene at the end of the movie, when Mattie presents Rooster with the Dragoon as a gift, he states "It almost got you killed when it misfired once." to which she responds "That is because you loaded it wrong when you were in a state of drunkenness." When or why he reloaded it is not explained, but the misfire itself is.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In the book, Tom Chaney was a young man; Mattie guessed his age to be around 25. Jeff Corey, who played Chaney in the movie, was 55 at the time. In the movie, La Boeuf claims to have a girl in Texas who would "look with favor" on his capture of Tom Chaney. In the book, La Boeuf made no mention of a girlfriend; his motive for capturing Chaney was purely financial.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In the book the store Rooster goes to regularly is called Bagby's. In the movie it's called McAllister's.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In the book, Rooster Cogburn had a mustache and did not wear an eye patch, though he had only one eye. In his fight with Ned Pepper, he wielded two Navy six-shooters. In the movie, Wayne carried a six-shooter in his left hand and his Winchester Model 1892 large-loop rifle in the other (the rifle is anachronistic, being introduced 12 years after the setting of the movie). The character of Rooster was supposed to be around 40 in the novel; in the film, he was played by 61-year-old Wayne.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In the book, Mattie has her arm amputated due to the snakebite and break. Rooster pays her a visit while she is recovering from the procedure, but she is too sedated to remember. She tries to meet him 25 years later while he is traveling in a wild west show but he passes away a few days before they can meet. She has his remains exhumed and re-interred in her family plot.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">Also, the film's Colorado location and mountain scenery are in sharp contrast to the script's references to place names in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Further, the film is set in autumn, while the book clearly sets the story in winter, with snow on the ground outside the dugout where Quincy and Moon awaited Pepper's gang. In the book, when Mattie falls into the snake pit her left arm is broken; in the movie it is her right arm. In the book she faces a ball of snakes which are disturbed in their winter quarters when Chaney falls on them. In the film Mattie faces a single rattlesnake. ==Sequels and other film versions<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">A film sequel, Rooster Cogburn, was made in 1975, with Wayne reprising his role and Katharine Hepburn as an elderly spinster, Eula Goodnight, who teams up with him. The plot has been described as a rehash of the original True Grit with elements of the Bogart-Hepburn film The African Queen.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-16" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[16]  A further made-for-television sequel entitled True Grit: A Further Adventure, appeared in 1978, starring Warren Oates and Lisa Pelikan, and featured the further adventures of Rooster Cogburn and Mattie Ross.

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:17.9200000762939px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;font-size:14.3999996185303px;">In 2010, Joel and Ethan Coen directed another adaptation of the novel. Their adaptation focuses more on Mattie's point of view, as in the novel, and is more faithful to its Oklahoma setting.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-size:11.1999998092651px;">[17]  Hailee Steinfeld portrays Mattie Ross, Jeff Bridges portrays Rooster Cogburn, and the cast also includes Matt Damon as La Boeuf and Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney.