The Detective (1968)

The Detective (Gordon Douglas, 1968) You spend a lot of time looking into the wearily dead blue eyes of Frank Sinatra in this one, as he tries to come to grips with a world he no longer understands, driving in the rain, looking for the clue to where it all went wrong.

There are some notable behind-the-scenes things that merit a footnote in Sinatra's career and in movies. For one thing, the film rights to the novel were bought by a guy named Robert Evans, a former actor associated with the Evan-Picone fashion line, and he got the ball rolling on the film for 20th Century Fox. But, before any film started rolling, he was offered the title of head of production by Paramount Studios (where he would oversee Paramount's glory days shepherding such films as True Grit, Love Story, and The Godfather, among others). Once at Paramount, he concentrated on their planned film of Rosemary's Baby, which starred an actress who'd become popular on television, but was also the then-current wife of Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow. Sinatra was adamant that his wife appear with him in The Detective. She refused, convinced by Evans that she'd win an Oscar for her work in Rosemary (a tactic he used quite often, ironically, to persuade cast and crew to do his bidding). Farrow stuck with Rosemary's Baby and Sinatra served her divorce papers on its set. Jacqueline Bisset was cast, instead, sporting a wig of short hair that was reminiscent of Farrow's chopped hair-style.

The Detective hasn't aged well. What was daring and "adult" at the time of the film's release (the forced underground homosexual culture, along with nymphomania) now seems dated and "quaint," even. More compelling, and ground-breaking is the police procedural in the foreground—a murder investigation that has a ritual aspect to it. The victim's house-mate (Tony Musante) is noticeably absent, and Sinatra's Det. Joe Leland leads the investigation to track the man down, leading to his arrest, trial and execution. Textbook, it's thought. 

But, later, he's approached by Norma McIver (Jacqueline Bisset) the wife of a prominent suicide (William Windom), who committed the act very publicly, and Leland's investigation leads him to question his earlier actions and those of his authorities. All this, while reconciling his difficulties with his wife (Lee Remick). The fallibility of the cops to follow their prejudices, and pressure from corrupt superiors was something new to the genre. These cops had flat-feet of clay.

Director Douglas—not one for subtlety—overlays the execution

scene rather than just letting the character's grief tell the story.

The director, Gordon Douglas, was a favorite of star Sinatra, shooting quickly and efficiently, letting Sinatra do his set-up's in the minimal number of takes that he preferred. The cast also has prominent roles for Ralph Meeker, Jack Klugman, Al Freeman Jr. and Robert Duvall as other detectives in Leland's squad.

If the film has passed into the discount bin of film history, it does have one more tangential link to claim some significance beyond itself.

There were other novels in the "Leland" series by author Roderick Thorp, including one, "Nothing Lasts Forever," in which The Detective tries to save his family from terrorists in a high-rise professional building. 

 

That's right, it's the book on which Die Hard was based. Per his contract, Sinatra had first refusal reprising the character and as he would be the age of 73 at the time of filming, he passed. Now, just imagine if John McLaine had said "Dooby-dooby-doo" instead of "Yippie-Kye-yay..."

The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

Hidden in Plain Sight

or

The Poe-Eyed Detective ("It Will Work Out")

 

There is something ingenious, if not precious, about the conceit: a murder mystery featuring the creator of the modern detective story.*

 

Sure, every depressive knows Edgar Allen Poe as the writer of morbid, anguished poetry with repeated lines at the ends of stanzas. But, with his publication of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" in 1841, he began a new genre of mystery story, based, not only on the dark corners of the human psyche, but it's very opposite, the power of reasoning and deduction—or what he called "ratiocination." With the success of his Dupin stories, came the inspiration for Doyle of Sherlock Holmes (he never shied from admitting it or his other sources) and, from there, the progeny of the countless numbers of problem-solving busybodies that have expanded and pushed the envelope of the Dewey Decimal System for decades.

Homage must be paid.

The Pale Blue Eye (love the title...) begins with an image, a surrealistic scene veiled in fog, of a man handing by the neck from a tree. But, something's off. His feet are on the ground, rather than being suspended above it. The explanation for that image will take the entire movie to explain, but already you're hooked, and that image is a wonderful metaphor for a mystery. Something deadly has happened, but why, and by whom, needs to be sussed out. Only one person knows and that is the one who did the deed.

It's 1830. Retired constable Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) lives a solitary life in his rustic, but well-libraried cabin, another in a long line of isolated men, known for "getting a confession with just a stare." His wife died many years ago, and his only daughter, whom he mourns, has disappeared—a mystery that still haunts him. One day he is greeted by Captain *ahem* Hitchcock (Simon McBurney) from nearby West Point Academy. One of their cadets has been found dead—he'd been hung, apparently, but the most grisly aspect of the deed is that his heart has been carved out of his chest.

Landor has some restrictions put on him by the Academy Superintendent, Thayer (Timothy Spall):he is to report to him and Hitchcock daily on his progress; he works for them as an employee as long as they approve of his work; interviews with cadets must be done with Hitchcock's supervision; he can't drink on the job. There is a tavern in the town, however, which he visits after hours. He runs afoul of the Academy's physician, Dr. Marquis (Toby Jones), when he proves himself unsatisfied with the doctor's autopsy—but Landor's thorough work does win him enough grudging respect that he is invited to the doctor's home, where he meets his somewhat-hysterical wife (Gillian Anderson, always great, even when she's not doing the autopsies) and his children, cadet Artemus (Harry Lawtey) and his lovely daughter Lea (Lucy Boynton).

The cadet interviews do not go well. The young men are less than forthcoming-especially under the baleful eye of Hitchcock. But, there is one young Virginian cadet who attracts Landor's attention, not only because he has an obvious intelligence and grand-if precise manner of speaking. He's also a bit of an outsider at the Academy, a frequent object of scorn among the students...and the instructors.

This is cadet E.A. Poe (Harry Melling), not the finest example of military discipline, frequently seeking permission to be excused from outside drills, citing poor health and spending his time writing poetry. When Landor first meets Poe, he is struck by his eloquence and directness, but more by his opinion that the perpetrator may have chosen a mundane way to kill the victim, but the cutting out of the heart "makes him a poet." Poe's creepiness makes him a "usual suspect" as far as murder mysteries go, but at a later meeting in a tavern, Landor suggests to him that they should work together on the case, as Poe might have opinions—and access—that Landor could use.

Then, there is Landor's mentor, Jean Pepe (Robert Duvall), an elderly recluse, with a vast knowledge of all things ritualistic and arcane. It's always good to see Duvall in anything, and his presence reminds one of the useful—but supplementary— characters that inform and give a certain historical sub-text to many a fictional detective.

The investigation twists and turns like a speckled band—no, the story doesn't involve snakes—but, is enhanced and complicated by young cadet Poe's besotted enchantment with the doctor's daughter Lea Marquis, prone to seizures that might be due to epilepsy—or maybe it's just a family curse.

Oh, this one is a corker, with a resolution that will surprise casual mystery watchers, and inspire appreciative smiles from aficionados with its echoes of Poe's own detective fiction. There might be a bump or two in motivation, a red-herring here and there (aren't there always?), but, by the end, one will be properly sanguine with the mystification they experience.

And the cast is top-notch. Bale isn't grand-standing here with tics and business, but relies on a relaxed body language that he rarely employs, and the relationship between he and Melling's overelegant Poe is a nice study in contrasts in a mutual admiration society of two. Director Cooper keeps things moving swiftly and takes full advantage of cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi's ability to create astounding images of nature and the unnatural. And Howard Shore's score is lovely, another wonderful example of why he should be doing more music for films these days.

It's a very well-done film, that is only undermined by the fact that it will never light—and darken—a theater screen, where it can be truly appreciated, and, although it is nice that Netflix gave it a healthy paycheck to be produced, why it should be relegated to a small screen, is a real mystery.

* When the Mystery Writers of America organization hands out their little trophies, they are dubbed "The Edgars." There are some scholars who begrudge Poe the title. But, they can't do anything about the little statues.

Crazy Heart

I'll have a review of Scott Cooper's direct-to-Netflix film tomorrow—the review of Cooper's Hostiles is one of the most looked-at articles on this blog (I've never known why—except for maybe the D.H. Lawrence quote about the American character that's mentioned in it). But, here's one—written at the time of this Cooper film's release, and there's a bunch of preamble about Oscar strategy (which seems to be spending too much time in the news-feeds lately).

"Breaking Bad"

or

I Used To Be Somebody, Now I'm Somebody Else

 

At the end of each filmic year, theaters are filled to their google-plexes with all sorts of movies. Because of the Holidays, there's plenty of people wandering around major areas of assembly with the occasional two hours to kill, so Christmas is as profitable a time to the studios as Summer. Every conglomerate pushes and shoves to squeeze in one more blockbusting crowd-pleaser to blacken the year-end red ink.

Then there are the films that have been positioned to impress the critics' societies and are launched into Los Angeles and New York, so they can be eligible for awards, most pointedly The Oscars. And in that sub-category, there are the waifs—the ones that open in those markets and take a little longer to reach Biloxi, because, frankly, the studios would rather launch heavier weights during the Holiday Crunch, then release the films they feel will have only a niche market, that might have a respectable run in the projection booth, before reaching a more sizable audience in the rental market. The reason they're there is for the Awards, and usually for an acting honor to someone who does consummately good work, but has never played a "disease" role, or worn heavy make-up to win. 

I'm talking about films like, recently, Venus with Peter O'Toole, Being Julia with Annette Bening, even last year's The Wrestler with Mickey Rourke. Earnest films with Oscar "buzz" for their stars, the kind that were mocked by Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration.

 

This year's it's Crazy Heart.

The story of an alcoholic country singer-songwriter, on a Southwest tour of what they call (in the biz) "toilets," merely reflects the downward spiral "Bad" Blake (Jeff Bridges) has put himself into. Perpetually boozed up, touring in the same old station wagon (old "Bessie") he used in the early days when he was more successful, his life is comprised of using things up and tossing them away—cigarettes, bottles of booze, ex-wives (five of them, maybe four, he can't seem to remember), he still has the talent—his reporter-inquisitor, a single mother (Maggie Gyllenhaal) from a Santa Fe newspaper that he begins a relationship with, says he can still toss off a song instantaneously that most people would struggle years to write—hasn't completely left him. But, that may be the last thing to go. He hasn't written a new song in years—the writing skills are there, but the inspiration has long ago moved on. It's one more thing taken for granted in a career that brought easy success that couldn't be maintained in the living of it.

The fur-bellied snark in me would say I'd been to this rodeo before in a fine film two decades back called Tender Mercies, which spotlighted Robert Duvall (and in a mirror reflection, he has a small role in, and executive produced, this feature), and had more of a spiritual nature to it. There's no God in Crazy Heart (scripted and directed low key by Scott Cooper), as reality and responsibility is tough enough to fathom for Bad.

But it's a good movie for Jeff Bridges, who is always so good—his small part in The Men Who Stare at Goats was a comedic and dramatic gem, he being the only actor in it to quietly evoke deep sympathy, let alone belief—that he's always in danger of being taken for granted in the periphery of other folks' vehicles. This time, though, the spot-light's on him, and he's buttressed by a solid cast of actors lending their own mega-wattage to the brightness surrounding him. That includes Colin Farrell, buried deep in the credits to not attract attention, in a terrific performance that reflects kindly on his "mentor." Another nice thing is that T Bone Burnett and the late Stephen Bruton have composed clever, old-style country songs in the keys of both Farrell and Bridges, so they never seem less than authentic on-stage.

That extends to the story, too, which resists the epiphany lesser hands might have constructed. But like an old country song, the emphasis is on transitioning, rather than succeeding, maintaining rather than overcoming, in being rather than having dreams come true. Sometimes the triumph is in recognizing what one's taken for granted for so long. 

 

Hope he gets that Oscar.*

* 2023 Update: He did. And Crazy Heart won for Best Original Song.

Get Low

Written at the time of the film's release...

"The Hell With It. The Hell With Me."

or
"An Old Nutter Attracts More..."

Twain coulda wrote this one: a hermit of 40 years makes his way into town to arrange his own funeral party (which he'd like to attend before it's required, thank you).

That Get Low, which tells the tale, is based on a true story only makes it that much more enjoyable, even if the film itself turns dark, just as Twain woulda spun it. It is, when all is said and done, about a funeral.

Frank Bush (Robert Duvall), who has lived apart from the Tennesee community, has developed a reputation as a "Boogie-Man"—for Duvall, this role is the push-back book-end to his "Boo" Radley from To Kill a Mockingbird—and gets it in his mind to arrange a "living funeral," where anyone who has a story to tell about him can and might.  For local funeral home director Frank Quinn (Bill Murray), Bush's odd request is an opportunity to make a big score and arrange an ultimate funeral—whatever it takes, he'll do, even if the arrangements start to get a little bit out of his control. For Murray's Quinn, it's a movie-length warning of "It's your funeral..."

The poster above makes one think that it's a two hander, just Duvall and Murray, but this is an ensemble picture—a very meticulously cast one—with a lot of people, including Lucas Black, Sissy Spacek, Bill Cobbs and Gerald McRaney doing some of their most effective work in years. Spacek, in particular, is a marvel.  This isn't one of her "splashy" roles, and she's been purposely de-glammed to take the blossom off her ripe strawberry features, but she still manages to make every define her character by the simplest of gestures, or by the "social smile" under pained eyes. Bill Cobbs plays a prickly minister acquaintance of Bush's, and makes the maximum potential out of a small role—like Duvall used to in his early career—with innate comic timing and a sense of doomed inevitability. His laugh brings a smile to the face.  Murray does his best work in years. His Quinn is at heart an opportunist, but makes it look presentable (like any good funeral director!) with the look of feigned dignity and a melancholy elan.

But it's Duvall's picture—he's in most scenes—and one is tempted to call it Oscar-bait for the veteran character actor, as he hasn't had a role this big in years—the arc of the character turning from eccentric to tragic figure without betraying the characteristics on either end of the curve, displaying his capacity to create a living character, able to accomodate the trials and tones of the movie. Speaking in a voice like brittle rice paper, that flakes off bits of sentences at the end, his Bush is a courtly soul in need of definition. The old hermit, after spending 40 years in a self-imposed exile from the opinions of others, initially seeks their judgement, first as audience, and then as performer, seeking some ablution or absolution—a trial-run, if you will, in the court of public opinion, before being forced to succumb to the Final Judgement. It is confession and catharsis, timed with the death of one man, and the return of his widow to her home-town. Duvall's funeral speech is humble, contrite and confused, and the actor provides an amazing sonic counter-point to his recounting of the history that has dominated and colored his existence. His performance haunts, in the display of a haunted man.

Director Andrew Schneider, a previous Oscar winner for his short film work, manages to maintain a visual interest throughout the movie, observing events but never calling attention to itself observing. Characters are sometimes over-whelmed in the surroundings, and the scale of the film is sparingly in line with a small-town closeness. That the tone gradually shifts from quaint eccentricity to Southern Gothic is probably inevitable for a film that climaxes with a funeral, especially one that starts with humble beginnings and turns grandiose and complicated (in a movie turn towards melodrama that had nothing to do with the actual historical events of the real Felix Breazeale). But, without the added mystery, and "the story to tell," the film would have had no depth, and would have felt as shallow as a grave in a pet cemetery. The embellishments give the story added weight, and make the turns of events mean something, as opposed to just being an old man's fancy.

Well worth seeing.

The real Felix "Bush" Breazeale, attending his funeral in 1938.

Anytime Movies #9: To Kill a Mockingbird

While I catch up on the reviews still in "Draft" phase here, I'll re-run a feature I ran when I first started this blog seven years ago,* when it was suggested I do a "Top Ten" List.

I don't like those: they're rather arbitrary; they pit films against each other, and there's always one or two that should be on the list that aren't because something better shoved it down the trash-bin.

So, I came up with this: "Anytime" Movies.

Anytime Movies are the movies I can watch anytime, anywhere. If I see a second of it, I can identify it. If it shows up on television, my attention is focused on it until the conclusion. Sometimes it’s the direction, sometimes it’s the writing, sometimes it’s the acting, sometimes it’s just the idea behind it, but these are the movies I can watch again and again (and again!) and never tire of them. There are ten (kinda). They're not in any particular order, but the #1 movie IS the #1 movie. And we begin in as contrary a way as possible (so as to avoid any comparison to a "Top Ten" list). This one is unusual in that it's a bonus (like the joke in This is Spinal Tap, "Anytime Movies" go all the way up to eleven). 

What is it about this film that puts it on so many favorites lists. Horton Foote’s masterful telescoping of Harper Lee’s frail, powerful novel? The fact that, as movie adaptations go, this is certainly one of the best? That it has an impeccably picked cast, directed to feel absolutely real, including three of the best child-performances in all of movies, by one of the best directors of actors, Robert Mulligan? The beautiful, fragile score by Elmer Bernstein, certainly contributes.

I remember seeing To Kill A Mockingbird when I was seven years old, and not “getting it” much. I remember being annoyed with my Mom for trying to cover my eyes during the “scary” parts—although Robert Duvall as “Boo” Radley did genuinely creep me out back then (in fact, he still does, a bit). I didn’t “get” the dog-shooting (“He won’t kill a mockingbird, but he’ll sure-as-shootin' kill a dog!”) But I remember that it was a scary movie for a kid. In the film, the night was so dark, and any light cast spooky elongated shadows and trees moved and leaves rustled. The World seemed restless and alive, full of mysteries and secret terrors just out of sight, when it should have been still and asleep. It was a world that, under the pretense of peace and calm, seethed with menace and dread just under the surface.

And that’s the key, I think. There seemed to be, in the movie, at least, a sense that the tremulous world was lurching and struggling to change—that the very earth was metamorphosing and demanding it, while the people entwined in that world, moved along, oblivious to the change, holding onto a complacent life that would inevitably end. At the same time, Mockingbird has the feel of nostalgia—the palpable sense that life flows through our fingers like sand, and that we’re always in danger of losing that life we hold precious. 

But you don’t think of these things when you’re a child. Summers are endless. Life is eternal. If born into a nurturing, protecting household (and that is key) there is the illusion that the world is benign and all things are possible…under heaven.

Heaven is a concept easily grasped by a child. If you’ve been “good” in your life, as a reward after death, you go to a “good” place to spend Eternity. In the years of growth, a child struggles to understand its world and to assert itself in an environment it has no control over. In a world too complex to understand, the concept of Heaven is a comfort to a child. It’s simple. It’s uncomplicated. It’s black and white. Like Good and Bad.

Like integrity.

Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) awaits a lynch-mob, that first—to his initial dismay 
and then wonder—is shamed and turned away by his own children. He shouldn't have wondered.

The children in To Kill a Mockingbird learn the world isn’t nearly as simple as they thought. That the Radley “kid” may not be the evil thing they whisper about in the dark before they go to sleep. That other peoples’ lives may not resemble their own. That their father is many things—but he is also fallible. Jem breaks down when Tom Robinson is convicted of raping a white woman, but I would doubt that he’s crying for Robinson. He’s crying for his father’s failure—a disappointment as palpable as his father being not willing to play football for the Methodists. Jem and Scout are too young to understand the idea of integrity. No, that's not quite accurate. They’re too young to understand the pressures of a world where integrity might be compromised. And they’re too young to understand that their father’s belief in right and good could actually cause them harm. 

But it is that integrity that makes their father dependable, despite the tragedies of the summer. It is that integrity in a fragile, changing world that will sustain and endure and remain a constant as sure as the north star in the void. And that echoes long in our minds at the end of the film with its last line of narration: “He would be in Jem’s room all night. An he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.”

When the American Film Institute held a vote for the cinema’s best hero, the honor did not go to the Sergent Yorks or the Skywalkers or the Bonds or any of the roles played by Eastwood, Willis or Schwarzenegger. It went to a character of gentle heroics who in the course of the movie only fires one shot, who does not raise a hand in anger, and with jaw set and quiet voice does what he knows to be right. It was a shock that Atticus Finch would be voted the greatest movie hero, but it was the best choice possible, and legitimized the idea of holding such a silly poll in the first place.

Stephen Frankfurt's evocative title sequence.

Music by Elmer Bernstein

Horton Foote died March 4th, 2009. Director Robert Mulligan died right before Christmas, 2008. William Windom, in 2012. Brock Peters died in 2005. Rosemary Murphy died in 2014. Peck, in 2003. My favorite actor in this and many things, Frank Overton, died in 1967. Survivors are Robert Duvall (Arthur "Boo" Radley), and the Finch kids.

And Harper...Harper "Nelle" Lee died February 19, 2016, just shy of her 90th birthday.

Except for her one gentle novel that stood like a golden spike in the Civil Rights Era, Nelle Harper Lee published no other major works, only a scattering of essays. Not a recluse, she merely avoided the public spotlight. She, in her shy ways, did no public speaking. She said what she is going to say. And that should be enough.**

Harper endures.

Anytime Movies:

To Kill a Mockingbird
Goldfinger
Bonus:  Edge of Darkness

* And, on Sunday, we'll put up a "Don't Make a Scene" feature from each week's film.

* * Just before her death, her agent published her first submitted work, "Go Set a Watchman," the rejected first novel that inspired her editor to tell her to try again and "write about the kids" which became "To Kill a Mockingbird."

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid

The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid (Philip Kaufman, 1972) Genre-busting western (following two years after the similarly revisionist Little Big Man) by Philip Kaufman back in his wild indie days about the splintering of the Younger-James Gang, due to their most notorious crime, the theft of Northfield's First National Bank, "the biggest bank west of the Mississippi." Starring Cliff Robertson and produced by Robertson's production company, the film was obviously massaged as a vehicle for Robertson, if not for the fact that Robert Duvall makes the most of the weirder, more psychotic role of Jesse James, cutting through his scenes like a murderously sharp scythe through prairie wheat. By comparison, Robertson has the more central, but goonier role of Cole Younger—distractedly visionary outlaw cursed with an eye toward "wonderments" and other bright objects that tended to throw him off-task.

The world is on the cusp of change—one of those "wonderments" is a steam-powered organ that proves to be both a blessing and a curse to the Younger-James Gang's ability to fight authority, rob banks, and line their pockets in the process. Jesse can't be bothered with "wonderments;" they get in the way of his "visions" for their exploits, which come upon him in nearly incomprehensible rants. Cole, however, always wonders how the outskirts of the Industrial Revolution can make their burgling business a little easier (he sports a brine-soaked leather vest to protect him from bullets).* Pretty soon, they'll move from banks to trains and the stakes will get that much higher. But for the moment, their targets are stationary, and their tactics not unknown to today's white-collar criminals.**

That it was also the beginning of the end for the gang, with Northfield's populace turning on the bandits during the course of the prolonged robbery, ending their "Robin Hood" reputations, and leaving a couple of the gang dead in the street, shot by civilians. The romance with the criminals would go on (so long as they were dead and not stealing town-folks' money anymore) in fictional pulps (and Cole Younger would survive and go on the lecture circuit...yes, really), but the West changed around them as so many of these "sunset" Westerns of the 70's were showing, making them legends...and you have to past your prime (or dead) to be that. Kaufman's take on it is intermittently fun, long on ideas, but short on entertainment.

* Jesse could be seen as the evangelical, and Cole the scientific , world-views. No wonder they broke up. Jesse died 2 1/2 weeks before Charles Darwin died.

** Before the raid, they prime the pump by encouraging stories of the bank's safety, driving up deposits to ensure they make away with a huge haul. They could work for Enron!

True Grit (1969)

True Grit (Henry Hathaway, 1969) Yeah, John Wayne got his Oscar for it, and I could harp that it's a performance both hammy and less disciplined than Wayne's usual output, and nowhere near Wayne at his best, but The Academy, in their sentiment-besotted wisdom, chose this as the film to finally honor Wayne, as they honored Bogart for, of all things, The African Queen.

At least they acknowledged and honored them.

But it would be easy to dismiss True Grit, as just "the film that got Wayne the Oscar." It's a marvelous combination of rough action, gritty Western, social commentary and an Emancipation Tract. It's a post-modern Western that fits into the niche of Peckinpah and Leone (without the attention-grabbing direction and editing), and slots easily into Wayne's output, which is a nifty balancing act to pull off. And it's entertaining as all Hell.

Credit has to be given to Charles Portis' original novel, with its prissy female narration, it's school-marmish way with the English language ("Jane Austen writes a Western"), and it's abundance of humor given the clash of style and subject matter--when Mattie Ross falls into a snake-pit, breaking her arm and leaving her vulnerable to rattlers, this is Portis' passage "I thought 'I am in a bad way.'" Fact is, Portis' book feels like it was written at the time, and, even though it turns the genre on its maiden-head, it could just as easily stand on the bookshelves with the pulps of the Old West and not reveal its academic pedigree. The actors' peculiar way with pro-nun-cye-ation makes a good dramatical equivalence. (sic)

Credit also the screenplay by Marguerite Roberts (who was black-listed, a fact that Wayne ignored when giving enthusiastic praise to the screenplay), and the no-nonsense, cut-to-the-bone direction of Henry Hathaway. The only fly-in-the-ointment is singer Glen Campbell's acting debut as "LaBoeuf" (heh), but even that works to the film's advantage--Campbell's such a "burr in the boot," his amateurishness "plays."*

Seeing the film as a young lad, I remember the extremely quotable Wayne dialog ("She reminds me of me!," or Wayne's admonition to his horse after having the temerity to fall on collapse after being shot, pinning him to the ground: "Dammit, Beau...first time ya ever gave me reason ta...cuss ya"), and the near-occasion of violence--the severing of fingers (and it's Dennis Hopper's fingers--his presence, and Robert Duvall's, give the movie added re-visitation enjoyment) made quite the impression on me in a world dominated by Disney and television.

But as an adult, one appreciates Hathaway's eye for grand vista's (framing in the same painterly fashion as he used shadowy urban spaces in the 40's), Elmer Bernstein's mature background score that gooses when it needs to and keens in quiet moments, Kim Darby's eccentric performance (did she ever play a normal human being?) made even more amazing in that she was deathly afraid of horses, and the latter half of the episode when Wayne takes the edge off Reuben J. Cogburn, and leans back into John Wayne pater-familias territory. 

My memory retains the image of snake-bit Mattie Ross being administered to at a trading post, and the camera heaving to the door-way holding a silent, unmoving John Wayne, eyes in shadow (of course, one's wearing an eye-patch!) doing nothing but watching not-helplessly, his hand up-raised on the door-frame, keeping danger away. God only knows how long he's stood at that door, or how long he will.

Perhaps that's why they gave him the Oscar--despite all the tinkering with the Western tradition, it still became a "John Wayne movie." The man was just too powerful a presence to be a fixture in an ensemble.

Rooster takes umbrage: "Fill your hands, you sonuvvabitch!"

Or, maybe it's just because he wore an eye-patch. The Academy loves disability performances.

In some interview—I thought it was Dick Cavett, but it was by Roger Ebert—
Wayne said this was his favorite scene in True Grit.

The dialog is mostly Portis' from his book, but Wayne's way with cadence seems effortless,

even though how he does it is different from any other performance.

* I remember Wayne appearing on The Joey Bishop Show (the talk version) around the time of the movie's theater-run, and Bishop asking him "How was Glen Campbell's acting?," and Wayne paused...a wonderful example of how he used theatrics and his persona...and said, simply "He's a Hell of a singer."

Next week: Rooster abides.