True Grit

Movie Night at Taos Theater
Oscar Berninghaus
1939

I loved Westerns when I was a kid. First it was about the horses and as I got older, the cowboys. In the movies back then, galloping horses were often thrown to the ground when the rider was "shot off." Actors who didn't know how to ride bounced and yanked their horse's heads around. No one ever walked unless it was Gene Autry singing a song. Cowboys, Indians and stagecoaches all took off down rocky trails at a run. Now that I know better, it was darn poor horsemanship. I guess horses were more like livestock than the cosseted, expensive pets they are now. Westerns were popular action films, and few people thought of it as abusive at the time.

Now we can watch a movie and be mostly reassured that: no animals were harmed in the making of this film. The Film and TV Unit of the American Humane Society posted a article on their website explaining how the rough horse scenes were made in the new True Grit movie. For example, "Little Blackie" was taught by positive reinforcement (treats) how to lay down and play dead. It would take many patient months to teach the right horse this trick. Sizzle would not have done it for all the carrots in the world! Cruelty aside, trained "animal actors" are now valuable and hard to replace.

The 1969 True Grit is one of my favorite movies. I was never a big John Wayne fan, but the movie takes its wonderful dialog from the Charles Portis novel and young Kim Darby steals the show as Matty Ross. John Wayne played John Wayne, and Glenn Campbell was a sweet dufus as the Texas ranger. Not much of an actor, but he sang the nice title song.

Remaking a classic film like that is risky. The new True Grit has good acting, although it's darker and more graphic than the original. We watched it on Netflix this weekend. Sometimes I wonder about these PG-13 ratings. It was filmed in Texas and New Mexico in the bleak winter, while the 1969 film has beautiful Colorado aspen fall scenery. I haven't read the Portis novel, but I suspect the gritty movie remake follows the story more closely than the earlier movie. The end is not sugarcoated. Rooster Cogburn doesn't ride off into the sunset on a new horse, and Mattie grows up to be a severe woman who never finds true love.

Original book cover
True Grit

The 1968 True Grit book was first published as a serial in The Saturday Evening Post. When all is said and done, "true grit" isn't just about shooting people or falling off running horses.