True Grit
Overview
 
True Grit is a 1969 American Western film
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 written by Marguerite Roberts
Marguerite Roberts
Marguerite Roberts was an American screenwriter, one of the highest paid in the 1930s. After she and her husband John Sanford refused to testify in 1951 before the House Un-American Activities Committee, she was blacklisted for nine years and unable to get work in Hollywood...

 and directed by Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway
Henry Hathaway was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring John Wayne.-Background:...

. It is the first adaptation of Charles Portis'
Charles Portis
Charles McColl Portis is an American author best known for his novels Norwood and the 1968 classic Western novel True Grit , both adapted as films. The latter also inspired a film sequel and made-for-TV movie sequel...

 1968 novel True Grit
True Grit (novel)
True Grit is a 1968 novel by Charles Portis that was first published as a 1968 serial in The Saturday Evening Post. The novel is told from the perspective of a woman named Mattie Ross who recounts the time when she was 14 years old and sought retribution for the murder of her father by a scoundrel...

. John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...

 stars as U.S. Marshal
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice . The office of U.S. Marshal is the oldest federal law enforcement office in the United States; it was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789...

 Rooster Cogburn
Rooster Cogburn (character)
Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn is a fictional character who first appeared in the 1968 Charles Portis novel, True Grit.The novel was adapted into a 1969 film, True Grit, and from that a 1975 sequel entitled Rooster Cogburn was also produced...

 and won his only Academy Award for his performance in this film. Wayne reprised his role as Cogburn in the 1975 sequel Rooster Cogburn.
After Frank Ross (John Pickard
John Pickard (American actor)
John M. Pickard was an American actor who appeared primarily in television Westerns.-Early life and career:...

) is murdered in October 1880 by his hired hand, Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey
Jeff Corey
Jeff Corey was an American stage and screen actor and director who became a well-respected acting teacher after being blacklisted in the 1950s.-Biography:...

), in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Ross' 14-year-old daughter Mattie (Kim Darby
Kim Darby
Kim Darby is an American actress perhaps best known for co-starring with John Wayne and country singer/actor Glen Campbell in the 1969 western True Grit.-Early life and film career:...

) travels to Fort Smith and hires the aging U.S.
Quotations

I won't rest until Tom Chaney is barking in Hell.

If I smelled as bad as you I wouldn't live near people.

If in four months I could not find Tom Chaney, with a mark on his face like banished Cain, I would not advise others how to do so.

I also notice that the men of Texas gouge their mounts with great brutal spurs and cultivate their hair like lettuce!

I want Tom Chaney hanged for killing my father! It's little to me how many dogs and senators he's killed in Texas.

Those horses can't outrun Little Blackie! They're loaded down with fat men and iron!

I'm going! And it's not because you say I can't, and it's not because you say I can. I paid good cash money to be here, and I'm on my own business! Now, we'll have no more talk about it.

My name is Mattie Ross, of Near Dardanelle in Yell County. My family owns property, and I don't know why I'm being treated like this!

Rooster Cogburn is no good friend of mine! He led us straight into your hands, and now he has left me with a gang of cut-throats! Is that what they call "grit" in Fort Smith? We call it something else in Yell County.

Papa's marker is not what was ordered. I will make that wool-hatted fool of a stone man change it.

 
x
OK