Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Shoot Out Scene in True Grit.

I liked both movies. The older one has to be taken in the context of the times. They could have done better, but they didn't have to because they didn't have gun guys or western fans on the internet parsing every piece of clothing or other prop. The shootout scene in the newer version is closer to the novel. Bridges uses Navy Colt's whereas Wayne uses his standard '92 Winchester and a 38-40 SAA. People really ran Glen Campbell down, but I didn't think he did bad. Kim Darby looked a little ancient to be playing a fourteen year old girl, but otherwise was not bad. The new girl was better though.

John Wayne worship aside, the later movie was better in almost every way. Kim Darby cast as Mattie Ross in the old version might have been the single worst example of role casting in the history of filmaking.

The new movie was more true to the origional novel and the guns & clothing more accurate to the period. No stupid large loop lever model 92s in an 1870's western..

And BTW, John Wayne really DID deserve the Oscar that year for TRUE GRIT. Because he did a great job in his portayal of Rooster and basically CARRIED an otherwise mediocre production.

As to folks saying Wayne's "Rooster" was too clean cut or spoke too clearly, well I guess in today's parlance Wayne decided to portray Rooster as a "highly functional alchoholic"..lol.


And besides the shootout scene line, one of my other favorite lines is when Rooster throws the empty whiskey bottle up in the air and misses it with his revolver and he mutters....." I think that Chinaman's runnin' those cheap shells on me again"..

So about 8 years ago, my old boss and long-time deer hunting partner, SuperCore decided to co-habit with his fifth woman. For a variety of reasons, they did not want to get legally married. However, their families demanded that they get hitched. One side was Baptist, the other Catholic. No one could agree on what sort of ceremony to perform, so SuperCore asked if I could perform a shamanic ceremony. It was billed to the families as a comprimise, but in reality it was more like thumbing their nose at all of them.

I did a straight Methodist marriage ceremony with certain key additions. It was deer season, so I wore a hunter orange poncho and hat (to make sure it was all legal). The hat had deer antlers on it. I had a whitetail deer hide for a stole, and I used my trusty rattle and a turkey wing liberally throughout the ceremony. Angus played the bagpipes.

SuperCore's best man was our mutual friend, Fitz. Fitz is a Vietnam-era Marine who wears an eye patch due to a meeting in the Jungle back in '69. I enlisted Fitz to play bongos. Just before the ceremony began, Fitz came up to me and said, "This is the most cockamamie thing I've ever seen."

My response, as I handed him a beer: That's mighty tall talk for a one-eyed bongo player. Here, fill your hands, you son-of-a-bitch."

Critisisms acknowledged, I prefer the first. Prefer.... liked the remake also.

I once, and deliberately got to use the Duke’ s line when he fell off his horse drunk, “Camp. Camp here!”

Wife , boys, and I were goat hunting.. after a stiff climb with an 80 pound pack, we had just reached a small mountainside shelf when I came down with severe Charlie horse in both legs. Wasn’t an ideal place to camp( no water), but it was flat. But it was starting to rain, and we had a poly- tarp for catchment, tho catchment off the dome tent fly would have worked as well.

I consider the remake better in every way. Matter of fact I consider it one of the greatest westerns of all time. Right up there with Unforgiven for me.




Travis

I liked both, in their own way.

The new movie could have left the scenes of the dead guy in the tree out, and the following scenes of trading the corpse off. Distracting.

I sure liked the scene where he kids those mean Indian kids off the porch of the trading post though.

I like the new version better. No disrespect to Mr Wayne.

I enjoy both.

I like them both. In the newer one, at the beginning the lawyer asked Rooster that had shot an outlaw, which direction was he going when he was backing up. "Backwards - I always go backwards when I'm backing up"

Cracks me up.

Yep, I’ve worked with a few ove4 the years, always clean, functional and drunk.

Well if I had a horse pistol like that I wouldn't be scared of no boogerman.

Give me Duke for the Win - you heretics!

I think the old one was filmed better.

Bridges had a tall order in the new one and should be commended for making this 'his' version of Cogburn..

Give me Campbell over Damon.

I stand alone. Flame on.

There was another True Grit?

I like both, but after reading the book I'd say Bridges did a better job of portraying Rooster. I'm a huge John Wayne fan, but in most of his movies it was really John Wayne as (insert character here) where as Bridges really played Rooster as it was written in the book. 'Course I'm almost as big of a fan of "the Dude" as of "the Duke"

Come on! The Dude!

You turn on the new version and every person from 70 years old to my three year old will sit and watch it. One's timeless and the other ain't.




Travis

Who the fugk are you, man?

+1 to both.

Fine story!

I liked both versions of the movie but preferred the first. Actually saw it in a theater before I went off to active duty.

That's a Colts Dragoon.

Fast forward to today. He would probably say " my god that's a 1911" LOL

I watch both versions of True Grit as pretty much two separate movies written and cast according to what audiences wanted and expected at the time each was filmed.

The original was outstanding in my opinion and exactly what audiences wanted and got with John Wayne as, "Rooster" Cogburn.

Kim Darby was a very popular audience favorite at that time therefore a money making commodity. With Glen Campbell's huge popularity at the time too he was icing on the money cake. Several other of the "Duke's" films cast young heart throb actors and musicians current at the time (James Caan, Fabian, Rickey Nelson, come to mind), in roles in his films obviously meant to draw young audiences especially females,

The second was outstanding as well though with some pretty quirky, if not outright weird characters, dialog and additions to the story which is what audiences often want nowadays.

Personal opinion I think the young lady that played Mattie stole the whole movie. Jeff Bridges was good but over-acted his portrayal of, "Rooster", to the extreme. Matt Damon's casting was because he was a known commodity as a audience draw.