1969 - TRUE GRIT & 1975 - ROOSTER COGBURN

OK here we go lots of True Grit.

True Grit the John Wayne version.  This one hasn't stood the test of time very well.  The first 40 minutes were slow moving with lots of exposition before we get to the actual pursuit of the outlaws.  

John Wayne appears to be enjoying himself, Glen Campbell can't act, and the main catalyst for the story Mattie Ross, played by Kim Darby is just pretty hopeless and much to old to be playing a 14 year old girl.

True Grit is in a lot of ways a John Wayne western, but the pivotal character is the girl, if the audience can't relate to the girl the film can't really work.  The film pretty much has to fall back on John Wayne hamming it up as the drunken lawman Rooster Coogburn which was funnier in 1969 then it is today.

On the positive side, True Grit was filmed on some beautiful Colorado locations and once it finally gets going has some fairly decent action.

Re-watching this was somewhat of a disappointment.

128 minutes, written by blacklisted writer Marguerite Roberts.

Rooster Cogburn had the producer Hal Wallis and John Wayne back along with Katherine Hepburn for a sort of sequel.  This was never much of a film.

John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn supposedly directed themselves and it sure shows.  Watching these two legendary actors engage in the mutual butt kissing of each other gets really tiresome after a while.  Wayne shamelessly engages in even more hammy out of control acting then he did in True Grit and for almost 2 hours.   Hepburn is a little more controlled but not by much.  Apparently arch conservative Wayne got along very well with the liberal Hepburn, they were about the only two old time Hollywood stars still standing by the time Rooster Cogburn was filmed.

Since this is a Hal Wallis production, the film looks good with lots of on location filming in the state of Oregon.  Still not so hot as a film.

108 minutes, written by the producer's wife Martha Hyer.