True Grit actor John Wayne became the face of the Western genre thanks to iconic classics, such as Stagecoach and Red River. He always had a firm understanding of characterization, but he always wanted to keep it family-friendly. Wayne once said that he actually preferred the changes made to the True Grit ending compared to the one in the original book, which wasn’t so “uplifting.”
‘True Grit’ actor John Wayne played Rooster Cogburn John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn | Screen Archives/Getty Images
True Grit saw Wayne play the legendary Rooster Cogburn, a frequently inebriated and stern U.S. marshal, who 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) seeks out after her father’s murder. Together, they hunt down Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey) to give him the death that he deserves. Meanwhile, Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Glen Campbell) joins them to bring him to a more civilized sense of justice.
Henry Hathaway...
‘True Grit’ actor John Wayne played Rooster Cogburn John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn | Screen Archives/Getty Images
True Grit saw Wayne play the legendary Rooster Cogburn, a frequently inebriated and stern U.S. marshal, who 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) seeks out after her father’s murder. Together, they hunt down Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey) to give him the death that he deserves. Meanwhile, Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Glen Campbell) joins them to bring him to a more civilized sense of justice.
Henry Hathaway...
- 3/2/2023
- by Jeff Nelson
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
John Wayne was in perhaps the biggest creative rut of his career in 1969. He'd just made the worst film of his career outside of "The Conqueror" in "The Green Berets," and with the advent of the New Hollywood revolution, was growing culturally irrelevant. His best collaborators, John Ford and Howard Hawks, were either fully retired or on their way out. Wayne could keep making formulaic Westerns with the hacks who let him call the shots on set, but the returns would be ever diminishing. If he wanted to matter in the film industry again, he had to take a risk.
Charles Portis' novel "True Grit," about a young girl who hires an alcoholic U.S. Marshal to hunt down the men who killed her father, offered the 62-year-old Wayne the perfect opportunity to tweak his image. The lawman role of Rooster Cogburn would allow The Duke to show off his...
Charles Portis' novel "True Grit," about a young girl who hires an alcoholic U.S. Marshal to hunt down the men who killed her father, offered the 62-year-old Wayne the perfect opportunity to tweak his image. The lawman role of Rooster Cogburn would allow The Duke to show off his...
- 11/14/2022
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Chivalry! Vows of loyalty and honor! Combat action that will impress today’s Marvel fans! The violet eyes and super-damsel figure of Elizabeth Taylor! MGM’s made-in-Merrie Olde England tale of Knights and knaves and forbidden love is yet another suits-of-armor sword-basher about ransoming King Richard from those European Union swine across the channel. Everything clicks, from Miklos Rozsa’s most stirring anthem to the righteous justice of the finale. And it’s restored from 3-strip Technicolor. Robert Taylor is terrific as the stalwart Ivanhoe, the kind of no-funny-business hero they ain’t makin’ anymore.
Ivanhoe
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1952 /Color / 1:37 Academy / 106 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date December 14, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Emlyn Williams, Robert Douglas, Finlay Currie, Felix Aylmer, Guy Rolfe.
Cinematography: Freddie Young
Art Director: Alfred Junge
Film Editor: Frank Clarke
Original Music: Miklos Rozsa
Written by Aeneas MacKenzie, Marguerite Roberts,...
Ivanhoe
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1952 /Color / 1:37 Academy / 106 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date December 14, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Emlyn Williams, Robert Douglas, Finlay Currie, Felix Aylmer, Guy Rolfe.
Cinematography: Freddie Young
Art Director: Alfred Junge
Film Editor: Frank Clarke
Original Music: Miklos Rozsa
Written by Aeneas MacKenzie, Marguerite Roberts,...
- 12/7/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
‘True Grit’
1969, written by Marguerite Roberts and directed by Henry Hathaway.
Starring John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Jeff Corey and Kim Darcy.
‘True Grit’
2010, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.
Screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on True Grit by Charles Portis.
Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and introducing Hailee Steinfeld.
It is strange to think that one genre can be closely connected to just one actor. When someone mentions silent cinema, people think Charlie Chaplin; martial arts, Bruce Lee and Westerns? It seems that the poster boy for many Western films is John Wayne. Even though his career included over 140 films, he received his only Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal as Us Marshal ‘Rooster’ Cogburn in True Grit, the 1969 adaptation of Charles Portis’ novel, directed by Henry Hathaway. The film follows young Mattie Ross (played by Kim Darcy), as she recruits Cogburn to avenge...
1969, written by Marguerite Roberts and directed by Henry Hathaway.
Starring John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Jeff Corey and Kim Darcy.
‘True Grit’
2010, directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.
Screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on True Grit by Charles Portis.
Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and introducing Hailee Steinfeld.
It is strange to think that one genre can be closely connected to just one actor. When someone mentions silent cinema, people think Charlie Chaplin; martial arts, Bruce Lee and Westerns? It seems that the poster boy for many Western films is John Wayne. Even though his career included over 140 films, he received his only Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal as Us Marshal ‘Rooster’ Cogburn in True Grit, the 1969 adaptation of Charles Portis’ novel, directed by Henry Hathaway. The film follows young Mattie Ross (played by Kim Darcy), as she recruits Cogburn to avenge...
- 1/12/2013
- by Katie Wong
- SoundOnSight
The first time I saw him, he was striding toward me out of the burning Georgia sun, as helicopters landed behind him. His face was tanned a deep brown. He was wearing a combat helmet, an ammo belt, carrying a rifle, had a canteen on his hip, stood six feet four inches. He stuck out his hand and said, "John Wayne." That was not necessary.
Wayne died on June 11, 1979. Stomach cancer. "The Big C," he called it. He had lived for quite a while on one lung, and then the Big C came back. He was near death and he knew it when he walked out on stage at the 1979 Academy Awards to present Best Picture to "The Deer Hunter," a film he wouldn't have made. He looked frail, but he planted himself there and sounded like John Wayne.
John Wayne. When I was a kid, we said it as one word: Johnwayne.
Wayne died on June 11, 1979. Stomach cancer. "The Big C," he called it. He had lived for quite a while on one lung, and then the Big C came back. He was near death and he knew it when he walked out on stage at the 1979 Academy Awards to present Best Picture to "The Deer Hunter," a film he wouldn't have made. He looked frail, but he planted himself there and sounded like John Wayne.
John Wayne. When I was a kid, we said it as one word: Johnwayne.
- 5/28/2012
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
The Coen brothers’ new movie adaptation of Charles Portis’ Western novel True Grit relies more on its source material than the Academy Award-winning 1969 version, but the older True Grit is a fine film, too, and fascinating for the ways it was out of step with its times. Director Henry Hathaway and screenwriter Marguerite Roberts worked hard to smooth out the kinks in Portis’ novel, retaining some of Portis’ comically elevated language and the basics of the plot—which sees a teenage girl hiring a drunken marshal to track the man who murdered her father—but shooting it in a ...
- 1/5/2011
- avclub.com
While True Grit may have garnered the great John Wayne the only Oscar of his long and distinguished career, that recognition, in truth, says far more about the nature of Wayne's performance than the strength of it. As western historian, Dr. Stuart Rosenbrook, duly notes in a fleeting brief featurette amongst the extras, this was exactly the performance that America "needed." Released at the tail end of the troublingly turbulent sixties, in the wake of the Kennedy assassination and the disillusionment of the Vietnam War, this loose adaptation of Charles Portis' novel offered a resoundingly reassuring fable of traditional morality.
A simple tale of a young firecracker ranch widow, Mattie (Kim Darby) tracking down the old gunslinger - having heard tales of his legendary 'True Grit' - and refusing to go away until he and Texas Ranger La Bouef (Glenn Campbell) help her track down the man who killed her father.
A simple tale of a young firecracker ranch widow, Mattie (Kim Darby) tracking down the old gunslinger - having heard tales of his legendary 'True Grit' - and refusing to go away until he and Texas Ranger La Bouef (Glenn Campbell) help her track down the man who killed her father.
- 12/23/2010
- by Neil Pedley
- JustPressPlay.net
John Wayne.s Oscar-winning performance in True Grit gets a Blu-ray upgrade in time for the arrival of the Coen Brothers. big screen remake of the western. While it might not be completely faithful to Charles Portis. novel, there is no denying the powerhouse performance from its drunken, one-eyed fat man Rooster Cogburn. Directed by Henry Hathaway (who handled Wayne in 1965's The Sons of Katie Elder) with a screenplay from Marguerite Roberts, True Grit also featured a brilliant performance from Kim Darby (one of the few women to put Wayne in his place on screen), Glenn Campbell, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Jeremy Slate, Jeff Corey, and Strother Martin. The film follows 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Darby) as she heads...
- 12/21/2010
- by Patrick Luce
- Monsters and Critics
Chicago – There are few Westerns more iconic than the original “True Grit.” Ask a hundred people to name the first Western that comes to mind and I firmly believe that “True Grit” will be one of the most-mentioned films. It is beloved enough that Joel and Ethan Coen have remade it into an already award-winning drama that will be released this week with Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Hailee Steinfeld. Catch up with the original on Blu-ray before you see the new film.
Blu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0
Based on the 1968 novel by Charles Portis, the 1969 Henry Hathaway film earned John Wayne his only Oscar (coming twenty years after his only other acting nomination for “Sands of Iwo Jima”…although to this critic his best work will always be in “The Searchers”) as Rooster Cogburn, a legendary deputy marshal hired by Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) to find the man who killed...
Blu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0
Based on the 1968 novel by Charles Portis, the 1969 Henry Hathaway film earned John Wayne his only Oscar (coming twenty years after his only other acting nomination for “Sands of Iwo Jima”…although to this critic his best work will always be in “The Searchers”) as Rooster Cogburn, a legendary deputy marshal hired by Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) to find the man who killed...
- 12/20/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
The first time I saw him, he was striding toward me out of the burning Georgia sun, as helicopters landed behind him. His face was tanned a deep brown. He was wearing a combat helmet, an ammo belt, carrying a rifle, had a canteen on his hip, stood six feet four inches. He stuck out his hand and said, "John Wayne." That was not necessary.
John Wayne died 30 years ago on June 11. Stomach cancer. "The Big C," he called it. He had lived for quite a while on one lung, and then the Big C came back. He was near death and he knew it when he walked out on stage at the 1979 Academy Awards to present Best Picture to "The Deer Hunter," a film he wouldn't have made. He looked frail, but he planted himself there and sounded like John Wayne.
John Wayne. When I was a kid, we...
John Wayne died 30 years ago on June 11. Stomach cancer. "The Big C," he called it. He had lived for quite a while on one lung, and then the Big C came back. He was near death and he knew it when he walked out on stage at the 1979 Academy Awards to present Best Picture to "The Deer Hunter," a film he wouldn't have made. He looked frail, but he planted himself there and sounded like John Wayne.
John Wayne. When I was a kid, we...
- 6/11/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Fill your hands you ... well, you know the line. You probably know this movie line by line, and your heart still leaps to see Rooster Cogburn flip that Winchester. So the news that True Grit is getting remade by Joel and Ethan Coen will either fill you with rage, excitement, or put you squarely into Swiss territory.
According to Variety, the Coen Bros aren't aiming for a traditional remake -- they want to return to the original Charles Portis novel, and make a more faithful adaptation. Their version will be told from Mattie's point of view, as the original novel is, and keep Cogburn as a side player. The Coens will undoubtedly amp up the Biblical tone and include the darker elements ... like what really happens to her after the snakebite.
Plans to remake True Grit have apparently been in the works for some time -- it originally begun at DreamWorks,...
According to Variety, the Coen Bros aren't aiming for a traditional remake -- they want to return to the original Charles Portis novel, and make a more faithful adaptation. Their version will be told from Mattie's point of view, as the original novel is, and keep Cogburn as a side player. The Coens will undoubtedly amp up the Biblical tone and include the darker elements ... like what really happens to her after the snakebite.
Plans to remake True Grit have apparently been in the works for some time -- it originally begun at DreamWorks,...
- 3/23/2009
- by Elisabeth Rappe
- Cinematical
Fox, Paramount, Warner, Universal
Paul Newman has been around so long and is so extended as a personality -- we see him most frequently on salad dressing labels -- that there's a danger of forgetting his genius.
Comes now the news that he's out of the acting game at age 82. Ponder this: If there's anyone close to being a new Paul Newman, he's probably in the cast of "Ocean's Thirteen." Yikes.
Anyone in need of a refresher should cue up for Fox's double-disc rerelease of "The Hustler" (retail $19.98). This was Newman's breakthrough film, a startling piece of lowlife lit built around the fictional pool-shooting punk Fast Eddy Felson. George C. Scott, Jackie Gleason and Piper Laurie turned this 1961 drama into an actors showcase. Every other line found its way into the nation's pool halls and stayed there for decades.
Robert Rossen directed with style, daring and street smarts, in striking black and white.
This DVD appears to have the same video and audio as the last Fox release, in 2002. No Big Deal -- there is almost no apparent wear and the widescreen images look handsome overall, a little pale here or murky there. The DVD also ports over the extras from '02, including a group commentary in which Newman participates.
New to the set are three featurettes about the movie, actors and pool shots. Newman is interviewed on camera, sharp but hunched over and hoarsely whispering a lot. The heavy lifting is done by Piper Laurie, who has excellent recall of the New York production. (Newman and Laurie both were in their mid-30s. Rossen called them "kids.")
Newman pays tribute to Gleason, who played Minnesota Fats: "He was on time, he knew what he was doing. Jackie Gleason is about as good as it gets." The TV comic already was an ace pool player. Newman claimed he'd never held a stick, but was coached up in no time by billiards legend Willie Mosconi, who often provided the hands and the trick shots for the actor.
Two decades later, of course, Newman won the Oscar for reprising the role of Fast Eddie in "The Color of Money". Score that one a career makegood, in large part for this brash, run-the-rack performance.
Fox deserves credit for upgrading the title at a fair price, but owners of the previous disc probably should wait for rerack on the A/V. There is a fair amount of repetition in the shotgun marriage of old and new extras.
Fox also brings to market a similar treatment of "The Verdict" (1982).
* * *
John Wayne's belated Oscar came for 1969's "True Grit", a rousing entertainment that didn't stand quite as tall as, say, "Red River" or "The Searchers". Paramount released the double-disc set as part of the studio's 100th-year Wayne promotion with Warner (retail $19.99).
The Duke plays one-eyed bounty hunter Rooster Cogburn. Valley girl Kim Darby plays a teen bent on avenging her father's death. Darby, who gives a sensational performance, stood toe-to-toe with Wayne onscreen and off, the bonus features note.
The extras aren't deep, but the docu "Working With the Duke" does a decent job of positioning "True Grit" in Wayne's sunsetting career. Perhaps mellowing with age, right-winger Wayne went to bat for the hiring of blacklisted screenwriter Marguerite Roberts, who was "weaned on stories about gunfighters."
The images of Colorado (2.35:1) are suitably sweeping and majestic. An extra feature returns to some of the "True Grit" locations, such as the graphic triple hanging.
Warner's revival of the Wayne-Howard Hawks collaboration "Rio Bravo" comes on strong as well, with versions on DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD (retail $20.98-$28.99). The remastered Technicolor images (1.78:1) are faithfully on the dark side -- everything feels like it's shot in a red-booth restaurant. The high-def versions add a lot of contrast and some sharpness, but there's a whiff of colorization that might unsettle purists. The mono sound is gunshot-ready.
Don't miss the oddball jam session with Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan, a welcome breather in this lengthy western.
Disc 2's hourlong 1973 documentary on Hawks is the best film in the set, built around an expansive poolside interview with the old director. Hawks vents about "High Noon", whose depiction of a shaky lawman he rebutted with "Rio Bravo". The docu's director, the critic Richard Schickel, shares the commentary track with John Carpenter, whose "Assault on Precinct 13" was a "Rio Bravo" spawn.
Also of note in the recent swarm of DVD westerns is Jacques Tourneur's "Canyon Passage", the highlight of Universal's "Classic Westerns Round-Up Vol. 1." The smooth, unusual 1946 movie about love and community stars Dana Andrews, Susan Hayward and the lute-totting minstrel Hoagy Carmichael.Glenn Abel's DVD blog can be found at dvdspindoctor.com.
Paul Newman has been around so long and is so extended as a personality -- we see him most frequently on salad dressing labels -- that there's a danger of forgetting his genius.
Comes now the news that he's out of the acting game at age 82. Ponder this: If there's anyone close to being a new Paul Newman, he's probably in the cast of "Ocean's Thirteen." Yikes.
Anyone in need of a refresher should cue up for Fox's double-disc rerelease of "The Hustler" (retail $19.98). This was Newman's breakthrough film, a startling piece of lowlife lit built around the fictional pool-shooting punk Fast Eddy Felson. George C. Scott, Jackie Gleason and Piper Laurie turned this 1961 drama into an actors showcase. Every other line found its way into the nation's pool halls and stayed there for decades.
Robert Rossen directed with style, daring and street smarts, in striking black and white.
This DVD appears to have the same video and audio as the last Fox release, in 2002. No Big Deal -- there is almost no apparent wear and the widescreen images look handsome overall, a little pale here or murky there. The DVD also ports over the extras from '02, including a group commentary in which Newman participates.
New to the set are three featurettes about the movie, actors and pool shots. Newman is interviewed on camera, sharp but hunched over and hoarsely whispering a lot. The heavy lifting is done by Piper Laurie, who has excellent recall of the New York production. (Newman and Laurie both were in their mid-30s. Rossen called them "kids.")
Newman pays tribute to Gleason, who played Minnesota Fats: "He was on time, he knew what he was doing. Jackie Gleason is about as good as it gets." The TV comic already was an ace pool player. Newman claimed he'd never held a stick, but was coached up in no time by billiards legend Willie Mosconi, who often provided the hands and the trick shots for the actor.
Two decades later, of course, Newman won the Oscar for reprising the role of Fast Eddie in "The Color of Money". Score that one a career makegood, in large part for this brash, run-the-rack performance.
Fox deserves credit for upgrading the title at a fair price, but owners of the previous disc probably should wait for rerack on the A/V. There is a fair amount of repetition in the shotgun marriage of old and new extras.
Fox also brings to market a similar treatment of "The Verdict" (1982).
* * *
John Wayne's belated Oscar came for 1969's "True Grit", a rousing entertainment that didn't stand quite as tall as, say, "Red River" or "The Searchers". Paramount released the double-disc set as part of the studio's 100th-year Wayne promotion with Warner (retail $19.99).
The Duke plays one-eyed bounty hunter Rooster Cogburn. Valley girl Kim Darby plays a teen bent on avenging her father's death. Darby, who gives a sensational performance, stood toe-to-toe with Wayne onscreen and off, the bonus features note.
The extras aren't deep, but the docu "Working With the Duke" does a decent job of positioning "True Grit" in Wayne's sunsetting career. Perhaps mellowing with age, right-winger Wayne went to bat for the hiring of blacklisted screenwriter Marguerite Roberts, who was "weaned on stories about gunfighters."
The images of Colorado (2.35:1) are suitably sweeping and majestic. An extra feature returns to some of the "True Grit" locations, such as the graphic triple hanging.
Warner's revival of the Wayne-Howard Hawks collaboration "Rio Bravo" comes on strong as well, with versions on DVD, Blu-ray and HD DVD (retail $20.98-$28.99). The remastered Technicolor images (1.78:1) are faithfully on the dark side -- everything feels like it's shot in a red-booth restaurant. The high-def versions add a lot of contrast and some sharpness, but there's a whiff of colorization that might unsettle purists. The mono sound is gunshot-ready.
Don't miss the oddball jam session with Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan, a welcome breather in this lengthy western.
Disc 2's hourlong 1973 documentary on Hawks is the best film in the set, built around an expansive poolside interview with the old director. Hawks vents about "High Noon", whose depiction of a shaky lawman he rebutted with "Rio Bravo". The docu's director, the critic Richard Schickel, shares the commentary track with John Carpenter, whose "Assault on Precinct 13" was a "Rio Bravo" spawn.
Also of note in the recent swarm of DVD westerns is Jacques Tourneur's "Canyon Passage", the highlight of Universal's "Classic Westerns Round-Up Vol. 1." The smooth, unusual 1946 movie about love and community stars Dana Andrews, Susan Hayward and the lute-totting minstrel Hoagy Carmichael.Glenn Abel's DVD blog can be found at dvdspindoctor.com.
- 6/13/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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