True Grit Details

Big John Wayne finally won peer group recognition, taking the best actor Oscar for his performance in this western as Reuben J “Rooster” Cogburn, a cantankerous, one-eyed, drunken old reprobate hired by Mattie Ross (the excellent Kim Darby) to avenge her father's death at the hands of thoroughly nasty Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey). This movie has acquired a reputation for being a rollicking fun western, but actually it is surprisingly violent for a Wayne film (a pit of rattlesnakes, Dennis Hopper's fingers being severed), and, with its finely hewn, semi-Biblical dialogue (by Marguerite Roberts from Charles Portis's marvellous novel), it's not — unlike Wayne's earlier westerns — really suitable for family viewing, despite its strong moral theme. Glen Campbell is ineffective as Texas Ranger La Boeuf — a role first offered to Elvis Presley, to whom Wayne wouldn't take second billing — but it doesn't really matter. It's still a film of many memorable moments, not least of which is Cogburn's final shoot-out in a Colorado clearing.

Disappointingly slow-moving and uninventive semi-spoof Western with a roistering performance from a veteran star, who won a sentimental Oscar for daring to look fat and old.