Favourite Western's

[scoundrel]

I have heard good reports of the Coen Brothers 2010 remake, but the original is usually the best in my experience. John Wayne won an Oscar for his portrayal of Marshal Reuben J “Rooster” Cogburn; it was a fine performance on the usual basis of Wayne playing himself. He is alternately funny, brutal and warmly human as the situation requires. However I have always suspected that his Oscar was a belated recognition that he should have had one for other outings, especially his fantastic effort as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers. Wayne was not universally popular in Hollywood, quite likely due to his disgraceful collaboration with the early fifties McCarthy witch-hunts and his support for the Vietnam War; but still, it was silly that none of his previous outstanding performances had been recognised.

The film is comic and lyrical in tone, but also lined with a grim spine, starting with the brutally observed public hanging, showing what a sordid entertainment this spectacle is.* It explains the uniform determination of the outlaws not to surrender, culminating in the iconic shootout between Cogburn and Lucky Ned Pepper.

Rooster: I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned, or bring you to Fort Smith, to hang at Judge Parker’s convenience. What’ll it be?
Lucky Ned Pepper: I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.
[Marshal Cogburn is startled, half-offended and half relishing the challenge to mortal combat]:
Rooster: Fill your hands, you son-of-a-bitch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-cPWheNyaA

The real standout performer in True Grit is Kim Darby as the precociously mature and quietly revengeful Mattie Ross, implacable in her quest to track down Tom Chaney, the murderer of her feckless father, and see him hanged for it. It is a really exceptional character performance. Although 21 years old when she made the film, she captures her character’s 14 year old persona very well: her uncompromising sense of black and white right versus wrong; her lack of tact; her awareness of being constantly put upon and having to stand up to adults who are trying to swindle her; her ingenuous and earnest, humourless honesty occasionally leavened by extremely dry observational wit:

Mattie: Please accept my father’s pistol. I would like you to have it. It might save your life one day.
Rooster: [accepts the pistol with a wry face] Well, I am not sure of that. It almost got you killed when it misfired once.
Mattie: [smiles primly and adopts tone of admonishment] That is because you loaded it wrong when you were in a state of drunkenness.

Darby’s performance is also remarkable for the chemistry between her and her reluctant and grudgingly respectful companions de voyage, Marshal Cogburn and Texas Ranger Lebouef ( a rare acting part done surprisingly well by country singer Glen Campbell). She plays off both of them splendidly, bringing out the tensions between the two of them as well as their tensions with her. She was aided by a script which gave her good dialogue, including excellent cameo scenes with Donald Woods as the rather too “slim” horse dealer who swindled her naive and feckless father (he bought four Texas ponies for breeding, but they were geldings); Woods brings dark humour to the part of a hard man who knows he is being emotionally blackmailed, will be disgraced in a legal fight with an orphan even though the law is probably on his side, and has a sneaking respect for a mere child who has the gumption to fight him for the sake of her widowed mother and orphaned little sister and brother. He is also a good enough sport to accept defeat gracefully...sort of.

Mr Barlow: Good morning Miss Ross. I take it you have come to collect your father’s saddle.
Mattie: Just as we arranged yesterday, Mr Barlow.
Mr Barlow: I heard a report this morning that a young girl had fallen down a well. I wondered if it might have been you.
Mattie: No sir; it was not I.
Mr Barlow: Hmm.

The scene where she accidentally encounters ad confronts her father’s killer is also a masterpiece of really dark comedy. Jeff Corey’s middle aged and saturnine Tom Chaney is so convinced that this slip of a girl is incapable of shooting him that he sarcastically coaches her past her tyro’s errors in wielding her father’s obsolete and gigantic Colt Dragon pistol (it is a baby carbine rather than a conventional pistol); the look of offended indignation on his face when she shoots him is priceless.

It’s not the very best of the classic westerns but it one of the last really good westerns from the classic generation and I like it a lot.

*Judge Isaac Parker, the hanging judge who presided over the western circuit of the Arkansas state court and passed 160 death sentences in 16 years [only 79 were carried out] was a real historical personage. He is also portrayed in the Clint Eastwood western Hang Em High.

[1952224]

wasn,t strother martin the horse trader in true grit?

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by 1952224

wasn,t strother martin the horse trader in true grit?

I didn't recognise him because John Wayne kicked his face too hard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

This always happens when I don't double-check everything...

[1952224]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

I didn't recognise him because John Wayne kicked his face too hard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

This always happens when I don't double-check everything...

i,d just blame the drink strother martin also appeared in rooster cogburn as shanghai mccoy the ferryman.an excellent character actor in many westerns

[Mister Fide]

Great thread. Thanks for all the lists.
My favs include
Once Upon a Time in the West - a masterpiece.
The Wild Bunch
True Grit (John Wayne)
My Name is Nobody
Lonely Are the Brave
The Balled of Cable Hogue
Waterhole 3
Ride the High Country
Little Big Man
Bad Company
A Fistfull of Dynamite - great film
Lawman
The Professionals

I will probably be shot down in a hail of bullets but, imho, John Ford is overrated along with The Searchers. I am not just saying that to get a reaction. That's how i feel. He did make some very good films, though.

[Mister Fide]

Originally Posted by Scoundrel .... The real standout performer in [I

True Grit[/I] is Kim Darby as the precociously mature and quietly revengeful Mattie Ross,....

It’s not the very best of the classic westerns but it one of the last really good westerns from the classic generation and I like it a lot.[/I]

Excellent post. Totally agree with your comments about True Grit, especially those about Kim Darby. Always underrated but gave some very good performances in the few films she made.
Thanks.

[1952224]

if you like vintage western films/t.v. shows from the 30s onwards try this site http://www.westernsontheweb.com/ all free

[deepsepia]

Pride of place for the oddest Western: "Viva Zalata" [sic] -- a Western filmed in Egypt with such notables as Hussein Fahmy staring as Billy the Kid.

Its curious because southwestern horse/outlaw stories actually are historically linked to Islamic North Africa.

Made in 1976 with patriotic fervor running high after the '73 War, they work in a patriotic song or two, a paean to Egypt and belly dancing Indian maidens

Its on Youtube, subtitled in French
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hRjkuHLtLI

[richardoe]

IMHO John Waynes best film wasnt "true grit" it was "she wore a yellow ribbon".

[haroldeye]

Nope it was The Searchers. Brilliant to ten to the power of one hundred.