True Grit
Movie, 1969, The '60s, Set in Indian Territory
True Grit is #16 of 34 in release order and #13 of 34 in chronological order in the Westerns.
The story
The murder of her father sends a teenage tomboy on a mission of 'justice', which involves avenging her father's death. She recruits a tough old marshal, 'Rooster' Cogburn because he has 'true grit', and a reputation of getting the job done.
True Grit recap
True Grit (1969) follows Mattie Ross, a teenage girl who hires a one-eyed U.S. marshal to hunt down her father's killer in Indian Territory. Henry Hathaway directs. In 1880, after Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey) shoots her father in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Mattie (Kim Darby) picks the hardest marshal she can find, Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn (John Wayne), a drinker. A Texas Ranger, La Boeuf (Glen Campbell), wants Chaney for killing a senator and tries to cut her out. She crosses a river on horseback to stay with them. At a dugout cabin, Rooster interrogates two horse thieves, Quincy and Moon (Dennis Hopper), and learns that Chaney has joined Lucky Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall). An ambush there goes wrong. Fetching water one morning, Mattie meets Chaney and shoots him, and Pepper's gang takes her hostage. Rooster faces four riders alone with his reins in his teeth. Wayne won his only acting Oscar. A sequel, Rooster Cogburn (1975), followed, and the Coens adapted the novel again in 2010.
True Grit ending explained
True Grit ends with Rooster saving Mattie from a snake pit and later jumping a fence to prove he is not too old. Rooster kills Chaney, and La Boeuf, who shot Pepper, dies of his injuries after helping pull them out. Mattie is bitten by a rattlesnake and breaks her arm but recovers fully, unlike the novel, where she loses the arm. Back in Yell County she offers Rooster a place in the family plot, and he leaps the fence on his horse.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
Where to watch True Grit
True Grit is streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, and Fawesome in the US. You can rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play.
Ratings
IMDb 7.4/10, Rotten Tomatoes 87%
Where it fits
- Release order: after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, before McCabe & Mrs. Miller.
- Chronological order: after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, before McCabe & Mrs. Miller.
Cast
- 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 Ned Pepper
- Dennis Hopper as "Moon"
- Alfred Ryder as Goudy
- Strother Martin as Colonel G. Stonehill
- Jeff Corey as Tom Chaney
- Ron Soble as Captain Boots Finch
- James Westerfield as Judge Parker
- John Fiedler as Lawyer Daggett
Directed by Henry Hathaway.