IMDb > True Grit (1969)
True Grit
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True Grit (1969) More at IMDbPro »

Videos (see all 3)
True Grit (1969) -- A drunken, hard-nosed U.S. Marshal and a Texas Ranger help a stubborn young woman track down her father's murderer in Indian territory.
True Grit (1969) -- A drunken, hard-nosed U.S. Marshal and a Texas Ranger help a stubborn young woman track down her father's murderer in Indian territory.
True Grit (1969) -- MattTrailer.com - Trailer (Flash)

Overview

User Rating:
7.3/10   7,442 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 4% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Director:
Henry Hathaway
Writers:
Charles Portis (novel)
Marguerite Roberts (screenplay)
Contact:
View company contact information for True Grit on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
11 June 1969 (USA) more
Genre:
Adventure | Western | Drama more
Tagline:
The strangest trio ever to track a killer. more
Plot:
A drunken, hard-nosed U.S. Marshal and a Texas Ranger help a stubborn young woman track down her father's murderer in Indian territory. full summary | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
Awards:
Won Oscar. Another 6 wins & 5 nominations more
NewsDesk:
(115 articles)
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 (From Gold Derby. 13 November 2009, 3:04 PM, PST)
User Comments:
The Honor of a Lifetime more (91 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

John Wayne ... Marshall Reuben J. 'Rooster' Cogburn

Glen Campbell ... La Boeuf

Kim Darby ... Mattie Ross
Jeremy Slate ... Emmett Quincy

Robert Duvall ... Ned Pepper

Dennis Hopper ... Moon
Alfred Ryder ... Mr. Goudy (Defense attorney)
Strother Martin ... Colonel G. Stonehill
Jeff Corey ... Tom Chaney
Ron Soble ... Capt. Boots Finch
John Fiedler ... Lawyer Daggett
James Westerfield ... Judge Parker

John Doucette ... Sheriff
Donald Woods ... Barlow
Edith Atwater ... Mrs. Floyd
more
Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parents
Runtime:
128 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Colour:
Colour (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono
Certification:
Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Canada:PG (Manitoba) | USA:G (edited for re-rating) | USA:M (original rating) | Australia:M (TV rating) | Iceland:12 | Brazil:14 | Finland:K-15 (2002) (DVD) | Finland:K-16 (cut) (1969) (theatrical) | Australia:PG | Spain:T | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | West Germany:12 | Singapore:PG
Filming Locations:
Bishop, California, USA more
Company:
Paramount Pictures more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
John Wayne's Best Actor Oscar win was widely seen as a sentimental choice, more in recognition of his forty year career. His performance in this movie was dismissed by many critics as over-the-top and hammy. more
Goofs:
Continuity: After La Boeuf succumbs to his head injury and falls off his horse, Rooster turns him over to look at his face. La Boeuf rolls over with his feet crossed. As Rooster and Mattie are riding off and look back at him, his feet are now splayed out. more
Quotes:
[LaBoeuf sits down for supper at the Monarch Boarding House]
Monarch boarder: Watch out for the chicken and dumplings. They'll hurt your eyes.
LaBoeuf: How's that?
Monarch boarder: They'll hurt your eyes lookin' for the chicken.
[he and other boarders laugh]
LaBoeuf: You squirrel-headed bastard!
more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Drive-in Movie Memories (2001) more
Soundtrack:
True Grit more

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User Comments

   (Comment on this title)
33 out of 51 people found the following comment useful.
The Honor of a Lifetime, 21 March 2006
9/10
Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

Now personally there are John Wayne performances in terms of acting that I like better than True Grit. Among others Fort Apache, The Searchers, Red River, The Horse Soldiers, to name a few. And certain films like The Commancheros and McLintock and Big Jake I find to be more entertaining.

What True Grit does is succeed on both levels, being both great entertainment and giving John Wayne the acting role of a lifetime in the person of Rooster Cogburn.

Mattie Ross from Darnell and Yell County Arkansas personified by Kim Darby has come to Fort Smith seeking the killer of her father Jeff Corey. Turns out he's also killed a State Senator in Texas so Texas Ranger Glen Campbell informs her. Both of them team up with United States Marshal Rooster Cogburn who resides in Fort Smith with Chin Lee and my favorite movie cat, General Sterling Price.

Corey is now in the outlaw band headed by Robert Duvall at large in the Indian Nation Territory that became Oklahoma. True Grit's plot is the trio's pursuit of Duvall, Corey and the rest of the gang.

But oddly enough True Grit isn't really about plot. It's about the creation of a character. Like Margaret Mitchell who wrote Gone With the Wind with Clark Gable in mind for Rhett Butler, Charles Portis wrote the novel True Grit with only John Wayne in mind as Rooster Cogburn. It must have been one singular delight for Charles Portis to see the Duke flesh out Rooster Cogburn exactly as he conceived him.

Tough old Rooster, likes an occasional drink, isn't above a little larceny, but has one stern moral code about real bad guys. Bring him in dead or alive and make sure you shoot first coming up against them. And he's got quite the colorful past as he relates tales of his younger days to Campbell and Darby on the trail.

In other reviews I've said that John Wayne had one of the great faces for movie closeups. You can see a perfect example of that in that scene with John Fiedler who plays Darby's lawyer J. Noble Daggett. A man who rates high in the legal profession in that area having forced a railroad into bankruptcy.

The camera is facing Fiedler as he's talking to Wayne about his visit with Darby who's life Wayne saved. Wayne's got about a third of his face to the camera. But even with that third, your eyes are focused on the Duke and his reactions and then as the camera slowly pans around to Wayne in full face his reaction shots are hysterical. You don't work with scene stealing character actors like Chill Wills, Walter Brennan, and Gabby Hayes for 30 years without learning something.

John Wayne was up against some stiff competition in 1969 for the Best Actor Oscar. It was his second nomination, the first being for Sands of Iwo Jima. He was facing Richard Burton as Henry VIII in Anne of a Thousand Days and a couple of newcomers named Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight for Midnight Cowboy. He was certainly the sentimental favorite.

If in no other place in our lives, sentiment does have its place in cinema. It was an honor well deserved, not just for one performance but for a lifetime of achievement in cinema being the player who put more people into movie seats than any other person ever. So many of the Duke's contemporaries like Edward G. Robinson, Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power were never even nominated for an Oscar much less win one.

Because the Motion Picture Academy has deemed this John Wayne's grandest cinematic achievement, it's almost a command to support this fine western and the man who defined the western hero and is still defining it.

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