Year Of The Western! #18 True Grit (1969)

I believe this will be the last John Wayne film on the list. I have seen him three other times (The Searchers, Rio Bravo, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) and each time he has grown a little more on me. I can see why he belongs among the greats to define a genre. This was a really fine way to say goodbye to the Duke for The Year Of The Western! 

Film #18 True Grit (1969)

Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production. 

The film starts off with meeting the Ross family as the father, Frank, is about to go away to buy some horses with his assistant Tom Chancy (Jeff Corey). Frank says goodbye to his 14 year old daughter, Mattie (Kim Darby) who is smarter than her years and tells her father to be careful. She does not trust Tom. 

The very next scene, Tom shoots Frank in the street after a drunken argument and then takes off. 

Mattie comes to town to collect her fathers belongings, including his massive Colt Dragoon handgun, and wants to talk to the local law enforcement about their search for Tom. They say there isn't much they can do as Tom ran off to the Indian nation and she would need to talk to a U.S. Marshall who can travel that territory. Mattie meets Marshal "Rooster" J. Cogburn (John Wayne), a drunk who has a habit of shooting and killing the wanted criminals instead of bringing them back to face trial. She convinces him to look for Tom (with some money flashed in his face). Meanwhile, a Texas Ranger, named La Boeuf (Glen Campbell), which sounds likes La Beef, is looking for Tom Chancey as well. Turns out Tom, who goes by other names, also has a habit of shooting people and then running. Mattie wants Tom dead, either by her hand or to be hung in the local county, and Le Boeuf wants to take him alive so that he can get a big reward in Texas... and then hang him. Cogburn just wants to drink and get paid... so he can probably go drink some more. 

What goes on from there is a triangle of sorts: Mattie wants to come along with Rooster as he hunts down Tom, La Boeuf wants to team up with Rooster but leave Mattie behind because she is just 14 and is likely a liability, and Rooster doesn't respect La Boeuf or any 'Texicans' and flip flops over Mattie's involvement because he likes her stubbornness (it reminds him of him). The three ride together but aren't always on the same page. Hilarity ensues.

This film is an odd duck to say the least. It wants to be an irreverent comedy at times, slap sticky in others, and then deadly serious in others. It is a fine line to walk and I don't know if it earns it.  

For example, like I said above, it's the second scene in the film and Mattie's father dies faster than Bruce Wayne's parents. It is sudden and brutal. The scene after, Mattie is in town and making smart aleck know it all comments about everything around her. It is almost psychopathic how little she doesn't seem to care about her father's death but gets tied up in commenting on almost everything around her. At the boarding house she is staying at, the host asks her is she wants more biscuits and gravy. Mattie's response? She takes more and says that as she is being charged 25 cents for the meal, she better make it worth her while. When the same person tells her that the boarding house is full and that she would have to share a bed, Mattie states that she should only expect to pay half the fee for the room then. 

I understand that the point of her character is that she thinks she has the world figured out and that she will not take no for answer. It is supposed to be somewhat endearing as she is facing off against a number of much older adults, but it feels very forced and awkward at times.

I also think part of it is the fault of the handling of the source material. I can't say I have read the book that the film is based on, but I get the feeling the dialogue is almost shakespearean in a way in which a lot of words are said but it takes a while to discern their meaning, at least until you get into the patterns and rhythms of the dialogue. 

Go back up to the trailer 1 minute 39 seconds in (or click here), La Boeuf is telling Mattie, a 14 year old girl, "A little earlier I gave some thought to stealin' a kiss form you, although you are very young... and you're unattractive to boot. But now I'm of a mind to give you five or six good licks of my belt." Those lines don't roll off the tongue and Glen Campbell does his best to get through it.  Aside from it being creepy, that isn't how conversational English sounds. I think the person who adapted the book into a screen play must have loved all the dialogue as it was printed but didn't read it aloud as they were turning it into a film script. 

I will admit that I have not seen the Coen brothers 2010 remake of True Grit but I get the feeling that they understand the langue and tone of the book better than what was presented here. Its not a knock against this film, anytime anything challenges your perspective is good thing but I just feel that a lot of people in this film were not up to the delivery of the colorful lines they were given.

Except John Wayne. Even if he runs the dialogue over with his bulldozer swagger, his unique cadence makes it work. Rooster is an odd character (bird?) that are equal parts piss, vinegar, and booze, but you still kind of like him no matter what is going on. He carries himself as larger than life but then he gets blackout drunk and passes out in a bed in the back of a chinese butcher shop. When he keeps sneaking drinks along the journey, you know it is bad, but it never leads to a poor decision being made or to him not being in the spot to save the day. At the end of the film when he takes his horse and jumps a four post high fence, the smile on his face is genuine and you want to ride off with him. You can see why he won an Oscar for this role. 

I will state now that Glen Campbell does okay in his role. His La Boeuf rubs Rooster the wrong way but ultimately they are on the right side of the law and have each other's backs. It is a proto buddy cop vibe in that way. I think the stunt casting of him in order to draw attention to the film with a song (more on that down below) could have went way wrong. I think Dean Martin in Rio Bravo was a stronger actor but his character was given more to do, so I won't hold that against the large shoes that Campbell had to fill as being a musician cast as a sidekick to John Wayne.  

Okay, back to the weirdness of the film. All that I said above makes it sounds like more of a comedy than a true western, and the actors and the music really want you to believe that, but there is a streak of darkness that runs through True Grit that is hard to reconcile with its overall lighter tone. Like the father dying brutally was quick and unexpected. The town Mattie went to to get her father's things was full because of a local three person hanging (the crowd was festive just like in Hang 'Em High), which they then showed, abrupt drops with abrupt stops and their feet still moving as they die. 

Then there is this scene. Rooster, Mattie, and La Beouf come across a 'dug out' (I am guessing a small abandoned mud covered hut with a fenced in pen for horses) that was supposed to be empty but they find two men inside, one with a leg wound (Dennis Hopper). Rooster believes they have information on where Tom is and is willing to play the two men against each other in order to get the information he wants. Just watch what happens.

Holy shit. Dennis Hopper getting his fingers chopped off, getting stabbed brutally in the gut, and then dying on the floor spilling his guts, so to speak, to Rooster. There is nothing funny about that scene and it comes out of nowhere to stab you in the gut as well. 

This film can't always figure out what it wants to be. It feels 10 years older than it actually is (the fact that this came out after Once Upon a Time in the West baffles me) with the upbeat score and John Wayne doing John Wayne things, but then it drops some very graphic (for a Hollywood made western that is ) violence on you and it can't make up it's mind if it wants to be a romp or a coming of age story for Mattie and what the real cost of revenge is. Her firing the Dragoon is not played for laughs but the moments right after are, and that kind of sums up the film.

True Grit is an interesting film as it shows American made westerns could try to be something different and they could grow in different directions. It is also a great showcase for John Wayne. He seemed so comfortable and confident in every scene he was in. When you see him face off against four wanted men in a clearing with only his hand gun and single shot rifle, you never doubt who is coming out on top. And goddam, they way he flips the rifle to load it is badass. No wonder the Terminator stole that move. 

Thanks for letting me ride along John, I hope to see you again after this list is completed.

Western Checklist (nowhere near official or scientific):

• Weird gang member names? You got a Rooster, a La Boeuf , a man named Moon (Hopper) and a man named Pepper (A severely underused Robert Duvall).
• Beautiful landscapes? This takes place mostly in the mountains of Colorado and it is very pretty. Like a beer commercial but with guns. 
• Any terrified horses? YES. I don't want to know how they get them to fall down when an actor gets shot and has to fall with the horse.
• How many Ernest Borgnines? John Fiedler played the oft talked about Lawyer Daggett. He was the voice of Piglet for almost 40 years. 
• Does it have a cat that acted pretty chill in front of the camera? Yes, and his character's name was General Sterling Price. I didn't even know cats could serve in the armed forces.
• Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? Yes. I really thought we had moved passed that point but then True Grit comes along and surprises me. For a song that has no good reason to exist, it's pretty damn pleasant to the ears.   

Rating:

I am going to give True Grit 3.5 out of 5 tin stars. I gave the Searchers a 3 and I liked this one better than it. I know that sounds arbitrary and it is but I didn't dislike this film. I enjoyed John Wayne's more lose and rough around the edges Rooster Cogburn and he carried the film a long way. It does pique my interest now to watch the remake and see how they address the tone and if they can find a better balance with the humor, the sudden violence, and the oddly poetic dialogue.