I'm Jeb Rosebrook.
For the last 40 years, I've been a writer, producer and educator
with a working interest in Westerns.
I'm Bob Boze Bell. I'm the executive editor of True West Magazine
and the author of six books on the Old West,
including Classic Gunfights, Volume One and Two.
I'm Dr. Stuart Rosebrook, a writer and historian of the American West,
with a great interest in the real and imagined West
as described in literature and film.
A lot of people don't know that Don Black, who wrote this theme
for the movie True Grit, is an Englishman
who has been honoured with five Academy Award nominations
and three Tony nominations.
The scenery in this is just spectacular.
I just think this opening shot conveys such a great feeling for a Western.
- And where was this filmed? - Colorado.
That's beautiful.
At the time, Charles Portis, the author of the novel,
objected to Colorado and wanted it filmed in Arkansas where it took place.
Well, for us history guys, the idea that it's Fort Smith, Arkansas,
and they're going into the Indian Nations
and then you're looking at the Rockies,
this is a little bit of a check mark against authenticity,
but you know what? It's so beautiful, I think I'm gonna let it slide.
Well, Henry Hathaway told Charles Portis that there were people
in Arkansas who had never been more than ten miles from home,
so they would think they had a beautiful part of their state to see.
Don't you think that Henry Hathaway,
like the great American directors of Westerns,
saw the West as a backdrop, a canvas for their camera?
This is a great difference from the opening of the book.
Marguerite Roberts, who wrote the screenplay, added this scene
to introduce the father and his journey to town
and the helpful hand who's gonna kill him.
Interesting how they stayed on her as long as they did.
That was very convincing.
Now, in terms of the clothing, we're still in the string tie era, I see.
That holdover from the OK Corral
when the string tie was really prevalent in Westerns.
Don't you think Mattie Ross plays a role that traditionally would have been
played by the oldest son for decades in Westerns?
And that she represents the new West,
and the role of women in America at the time?
I think the dialogue that Marguerite Roberts used from the novel
is so faithful to the novel that it gave it one of the more unique flavours
of dialogue that anybody's ever seen in a movie.
You know, so many people make such a big deal
about David Milch and Deadwood
and the language being... as if it's a first-time discovery,
but this obviously pre-dates that by decades,
and every bit as evocative
and compelling as Deadwood, don't you think?
And without the four-letter words.
I think Charles Portis' writing
is really akin to the cadence of...
...of a Shakespeare play.
It really carries through the film.
How much was her look contrived and how much of that was Kim Darby?
'Cause she has a very androgynous, boyish kind of look.
Was that on purpose, or is that just her?
I think if you look at the cover of the original novel,
they tried to pattern her look after the cover of the novel.
'Cause it really is a transition from the older Westerns
where it is the oldest boy.
And here you have this woman who is tomboyish, to a degree,
but yet very feminine.
And actually this scene...
...is filmed, to me, a lot less violent than it is in the book.
Really? How was it more violent?
I believe, in the book, he shot him in the head.
- Is that right, Stuart? - That's right.
In the novel, Mr. Portis describes him
as shooting him right through the forehead.
And is it an accident there as well, or...?
This is no accident.
Oh, I got the impression that it was a discharge, no?
My impression was that he killed him.
Now, this is in Silverton?
This is in Silverton, Colorado, the train station scene.
See, that hat is the one that's just like the cover of the novel.
That's a great hat. Very authentic.
And one of the nicer pieces in here. Some of this stuff is...
...a little bit old Hollywood, but I really like that hat.
I'm really a stickler for good hats.
And that is a great hat.
There's a lot ofjuxtaposition in the 1 960s between society
and its norms and violence.
And the same kinds of questions that are being asked across America in the 1 960s
are asked through very subtle scenes throughout this film,
including this scene of the hanging.
It's also interesting to me when...
...when the father was shot, that this was the same year
that The Wild Bunch came out.
And violence would never be the same in a Western or any picture ever again.
You know, there is a historic precedence for this hanging and people attending.
There were actual hangings in the Old West.
In fact, just down the road from where this was done,
in Durango, I think 1 0,000 people showed up.
And there's a famous photograph of people standing on wagons for miles.
And the one thing I notice about this, have you ever been to a concert...
People start crowding and crowding and crowding
because there was no ushers in those days.
And so that's the one thing that's kind of false in this scene right here.
The director said, "You stand here, you stand there."
Those spaces between there, in a real hanging,
would've been totally tightened up.
People would've been crushing each other.
There's a picture of Wild Bill Hickok's killer being hung in Yankton,
and people are up in the trees and everything.
They're just hanging everywhere, really, like vultures.
I would say then, in that case,
that whoever was doing the research for this probably goofed.
Because it would've been a much more powerful scene to have it that way.
The Indian in this, by the way, is Jay Silverheels.
Really?
Known as "Tonto" to millions and millions of people.
That goes back to what you were saying, Stuart, about... this is the new woman.
This is the woman that, in 1 968, is saying, "No, I'm gonna see it all.
Quit trying to protect me."
Now, that's a deep demarcation for Westerns, don't you think?
Most definitely.
And you had women in those days
acting as correspondents overseas in the Vietnam War.
They were in the streets of America covering the Civil Rights Movement,
and they were no longer to be shut out of the political process in America.
And they were gonna take their place at the table
and as the head of the household.
And is this Ridgway?
This... They filmed a lot in Ridgway, didn't they? Is that where this is?
- This is Ridgway, Colorado. - Yeah.
The next actor we're gonna see here as the mortician
is one of the great character actors of the ensemble casts of Westerns:
Hank Worden.
That seems impactful that she's... she's passing on the kiss.
Once again, it's a resolute woman who's...
...a little stronger than the usual Western female.
This was really a revolutionary film, wasn't it?
I mean, for the time, it really...
When you realise when it was filmed, this is quite interesting.
I think that's the strength of Hal Wallis as the producer,
recognising the importance of this novel and the timeliness of the story.
And as a master producer of Hollywood,
Hal Wallis knew he had a picture for his time.
Listen to that music.
You can hear Elmer Bernstein with echoes to The Magnificent Seven.
Now, Kim Darby wasn't the first choice for this role, was she?
- It was Mia Farrow. - Really?
So she came into this... How old was she?
- I really... 21 . - Twenty-one?
Twenty-one playing 14.
And she had her own problems when she got this role.
Did I read somewhere that she got this role because of a Gunsmoke episode?
Is that right? She was... The strength of an episode and that was it?
I believe Hal Wallis was watching Gunsmoke and saw her on it.
He was seven weeks out from production
and needed to replace Mia Farrow.
And went out to the San Fernando Valley and offered her an opportunity
to work on a Hal Wallis picture for Paramount with John Wayne,
directed by Henry Hathaway.
And he couldn't believe that he was having to haggle over the deal.
Yeah, I heard she held him up pretty good.
And she was going through personal distress at the time, right?
She was getting a nasty divorce, wasn't she?
And she had just given birth to a baby and...
And John Wayne wasn't real happy with her.
I don't think he was used to having the strong woman on the set
with her family.
Distracting from the men's club
that John Wayne enjoyed on most of his pictures.
And that makes the symbolism take it to even another level.
Because here you have John Wayne, the archetype, you know,
the old classic Western guy, and here's this uppity woman.
And John Wayne was not having much luck in the 1 960s with that
in real life. I mean, that was a problem for him, politically.
So this movie works on several levels, wouldn't you say?
Yes, and also John Wayne
never took a lot of guff off of women
except for Maureen O'Hara. She could really give it to him.
But he never took it from a kid, that I can recall,
except maybe later on in The Cowboys.
Look at that shot right there. I think this is one of Hathaway's great...
...his homage to
other great Westerns in the framing of that shot.
Yeah. Very John Ford-ish with the framing, looking through the door.
And that was a courthouse in Ouray? Is that right?
They filmed the interiors in the courthouse in Ouray
and the exterior was done in Ridgway. And there he is, the Duke himself.
With the eye patch that he could see through. So he could see everything.
Let's hear that story. That's fantastic.
He... He would not wear a moustache. They wanted him to wear a moustache.
He would not do it.
And they wanted him to wear an eye patch, and what's the story on that?
Well, the leather eye patch wouldn't give him the...
...the ability to see the entire scene while he was acting
or observing the setup.
And he wanted to be able to see all the action
at the same time he was on camera.
And so they had to develop a whole series of special eye patches
that allowed him to see the full scene...
...while he managed the realism of being a one-eyed marshal.
This scene, with the introduction of Wayne,
brings across the point that someone wrote that,
"The book was a novel about a girl,
the movie was a picture and story about a man."
And once John Wayne comes into it, that's very true.
Well, that is true.
Once he gets in there, he starts hogging all the oxygen everywhere.
But what a... I mean, I really think he deserved the Oscar on this.
His eye... What he does with his eye alone,
I think it puts him in another level of any movie I've ever seen him in,
and I'm not a big John Wayne fan.
Don't you think, it's a great build-up to Wayne's character at this point,
where... about 1 5 minutes into the film,
you've only seen John Wayne's character once.
Although we keep hearing more and more about him
as Mattie Ross seeks a marshal to help her bring
her father's murderer to justice.
So there's a great build-up to this character.
And here we have Glen Campbell being introduced,
who will be the fall guy to Wayne's Rooster Cogburn.
Of course, he was a big star at the time.
He just had the breakthrough with Wichita Lineman and...
...and By the Time I Get to Phoenix, and so he was a big star, who...
Couldn't they have gotten an actor for this role?
He sure seems like the weakest link in this.
Well, it was Hal Wallis doing stunt casting.
They had an older audience for John Wayne.
They needed those who were attracted to Glen Campbell,
his music, his television show and his popularity, come to see the movie.
I love the irony of his character's name: La Boeuf.
And he's the man from Texas.
And he was really one of 12 children from Arkansas.
And you know he used to play with The Beach Boys?
Yeah.
And that hair sure doesn't make the transition to today, does it?
Some of the other haircuts, you go, "Yeah, OK."
But that seems stuck in time, as does Faye Dunaway's hair
in Bonnie and Clyde, you know?
You're going through the movie, and all of a sudden,
you see something that kind of takes you back to 1 968.
And I gotta say that hairdo...
Now, that's an Arkansas hairdo for 1 968, but maybe not 1 868.
The sexual tension between young Mattie Ross and Glen Campbell
is very interesting at this point because of her youthfulness
and almost Huck Finn-like character throughout the movie.
They tried to explore her young-womanhood in this film,
but they always fall short
of allowing her to reach any kind of romance
- with any of the men in the film. - That's interesting.
Huck Finn is a great comparison. That's what she is.
A female Huck Finn in the West. That's very, very interesting.
This is a wonderful scene for anybody who ever read the book,
when she has to share the bed with the older woman.
Which happened a lot, you know.
A lot of people slept together, and it led to unfortunate headlines, like:
"Fort Sumner man slept with Billy the Kid."
That was a headline in the 1 920s.
Because, in those days, it was not...
We didn't have the homophobic... homophobia that we do today,
where people slept together all the time.
It was just a common course. There weren't that many beds.
So this is very accurate.
The other thing that'll follow with Mattie Ross's character
as a modern American woman
is she is resolute in her determination
to control her financial and legal rights.
It is a theme throughout the novel and the book.
And she makes sure that any man she comes across in the film, or woman,
knows that she is in charge of her finances and her legal rights.
Very modern American woman.
And I think a very strong role that greatly appealed to audiences
and the Academy.
So ironic that Wayne gets an Academy Award for a picture that he...
...really had to step outside himself to play
something that he didn't really like, being with this woman,
which was an anomaly in his kind of Westerns.
That's rather ironic, don't you think?
It is, but he also gets to play
the great American knight. The knight of the Great Plains
and the American West,
I believe a great deal like, you know, Long John Silver.
And, plus, don't forget, he's drunk.
And the Academy loves drunks. Leaving Las Vegas, you know...
It's just amazing that if you want an Academy Award,
play somebody who's mentally ill
or is a drunk, or preferably, both.
I think, though, that the secret to a lot of this
is that Mattie made him work harder.
'Cause he'd never worked with somebody who challenged him this way.
Probably not in real life, either.
Well, I think that goes to the heart of many good movies,
is when stars, in quotations, are made uncomfortable,
they have a tendency to do better.
I think that's why movies where married couples try to simulate romance,
they fail so badly, is because there's not that tension.
They're too comfortable, and maybe that just gave a little bit of an edge
to John Wayne here, that pushed him over.
This is supposed to be in Republican-controlled,
Reconstruction-era Arkansas.
Did you all notice the casting of the African American bailiff?
Did that strike you as new kinds of casting in an American Western?
- Very much so. - It struck me.
Now, who is... Who is the real Judge Parker?
He was the guy that hung everybody, wasn't he?
- Well, you know, he gets... - Legendary Judge Parker?
He is a legendary hanging judge from Fort Smith, Arkansas,
and he was in charge of 200 deputies that went into the Indian Nations,
which was present-day Oklahoma,
and round up all the miscreants and murderers and bring 'em back.
And he's... In a 21-year career,
he sentenced 160 people to be hung.
And I believe he successfully hung 80 of those.
That means he had about a 50 percent record.
A lot of them were overturned,
and I believe the movie makes a reference here
that he could hang anybody he wanted,
with the exception of a senator or president doing it.
That was not true. He was overturned quite a bit.
And he's also portrayed as being rather demonic
and having a bad sense of humour and stuff,
but the new thinking on Judge Parker is that he had a sense of humour,
he was very philanthropic, he was for women's suffrage, ironically.
And was a much more balanced man than history has given him.
Don't you think John Wayne enjoys this role right here?
Early on, this is where he gets to establish himself
as the law and order of the West. This is a very important scene
in understanding Rooster Cogburn, the man.
This is the first time we get to hear him actually explain
his philosophy on right and wrong and his form ofjustice
that Mattie Ross is going to hire.
Well, I agree, but on the other hand,
anybody who's ever been involved with a film
knows that it's not shot in the sequence of the script.
So we have no idea at this point whether this was shot
in the beginning of the movie, the middle of the movie,
the end of the movie,
and how everybody's emotions were carried through scenes
which were not in the same order as the script.
This is the summer of 1 968 when this is being filmed,
and so, obviously, American politics are fresh on everyone's minds.
And Wayne makes very strong statements about...
- ...justice. - What's right. Yeah.
And I see that... One of the things about a John Wayne movie is
he brings all that baggage with him. Right or wrong,
he is the epitome to many males still today,
that this is what's right, this is what's wrong,
"A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, and damn it, I'm gonna do it."
And so it's interesting that he would even take a script
and take it to another level, because he brings that with it.
I believe that John Wayne felt the book
had almost been written in his own image.
That the words had been written for him to speak on film.
And that led to his desire to have this role.
Well, there's nobody else that could've played this role, really.
What was... Was Cat Ballou before this or after this?
- I think it's before, but... - Where Lee Marvin played the drunk.
You guys... Different kind of drunk.
...think much about why she carries the gun throughout the movie
in the sugar sack?
It's a constant object that she carries with her,
hidden in the common sugar sack.
I love his drawl.
You're right. Nobody else could play that.
And it's really what's wrong with a lot of Westerns today,
is that it would be great if John Wayne was there to play it.
The roles. And he's just... he's missing.
Did you notice her show him how to roll a cigarette,
how she should improve it?
- Yes. - Like a flapper.
- A modern woman. - Yes.
I would've loved to have been on this picture
the week or two before it started shooting,
to be at the table when they did the rehearsals.
To see how much went around the table and who said what
and how they said it and what they changed.
- There's our great doorway scene again. - Yeah.
Because Wayne's relationship with her was formed at that table in rehearsals.
And he was upset with her. He did not think she was professional.
She did not come prepared
and would come in dishevelled because of her home life.
And he was a consummate professional. He always came prepared.
Well, a lot of actors of John Wayne's era
were always prepared.
A lot of it had to do with the director,
because the director expected that kind of professionalism.
So you came to the set and you knew your lines.
You didn't stay up at night and want to change this and change that.
Right.
I think her own insecurities in this role...
...plus, what was going on in her marriage,
aided in her coming to the set and not knowing her lines and...
You know, a director can get very impatient
with how many takes you have to take to get...
...when you don't know your lines. Or you want to change a word.
And if you change a line, it throws him off.
- Yep. - Or vice versa.
You know, Steve McQueen once was quoted as saying,
"Kids ask me what a pro is, and I just point to John Wayne."
That's what kind of a pro he was.
Well, it's interesting because McQueen loved to change his lines.
What I love about this role is the generational difference
between the two of them, and for young people seeing this film,
having role models in your life are important.
And in the 1 960s, the generational differences were being accentuated
with the arguments of what direction America should be taking.
And these two characters here play it out throughout the film...
...expertly and, I think, beautifully in their relationship.
And despite their differences, they can come together...
...for the good of themselves and their families.
Yeah, look at that right there,
you can just kind of see the little bit of tension there between him.
And there's that John Wayne walk. Nobody walks like that guy.
He's so fantastic.
You know, one of the things that strikes me,
the beauties of this film, is the set decorating.
- It is very... - This is...
- ...very lush. - Very authentic and very lush. And...
Yeah, it works visually, graphically,
and a lot of effort has gone into it. It's not just a bare set.
And the lighting that you see in this scene
is just part of the genius of Lucien Ballard, the cinematographer.
We'll talk about him a little bit later.
And the editing is superb.
I mean, you're looking here at a full shot,
and you let it play as a full shot without cutting...
- ...keep playing it... - And he takes his time.
...keep playing it...
See? The camera hasn't moved. There's a cut.
Now, is this in the book?
- It is. - This scene?
And how is it different? Do we know?
The introduction of the cat and everything is pretty much...
They were very faithful, huh? To the book.
Yeah, very faithful to the book, and also very faithful to the times.
There was a great movement in America in the 1 870s and 1 880s,
the social Christian movement, led by American women,
to help improve our society and bring civilisation to our West.
And so that's the other thing that's playing out here
between John Wayne and Kim Darby's characters,
is the role of the American woman in the settling of the West.
And Mattie Ross is truly a modern American Western woman,
who is going to play a role in its settlement and...
...and later on in leading the temperance movement and Prohibition.
- Great language. - Excellent.
Very accurate.
You know, I never knew Henry Hathaway or how he worked,
but I would be really interested to know how...
...how long he rehearsed a scene like this.
To get everybody into it and then... and then shot it.
Whether, for instance, he would announce, "This is a rehearsal,"
and shoot that while everybody was really relaxed.
Here we go. It's a great scene with the rat. The rat and the writ.
This is a real allegory with law and order.
Rat writ, writ for a rat.
It's an allegory, a metaphor for law and order.
Of course, '68, we had all the riots.
And two assassinations.
So this is an excellent metaphor for all of that.
It wasn't long after that, wasn't it, that Brian Garfield wrote the novel
- that Charles Bronson did? - Death Wish?
Death Wish?
When you watch a lot of Westerns, you see that much of it is very derivative.
You can watch Major Dundee and you see the plot for Dirty Dozen.
And it's funny how one movie will pick up what the other movie did before it.
And a lot of osmosis going on here.
I think John Wayne was very interested in exploring his lifelong character
that began with the Ringo Kid in Stagecoach...
...and continued on through his career in Westerns.
I think that his role as Rooster Cogburn here
is a character that he's been developing for most of his career
and gets to re-examine that man of the West,
that great knight of the Plains and his inner angst,
his battles with his own demons,
while trying to do what is right and just, according to his code of the West.
Yeah, at this time of his life.
Do you think at all through the picture we find...
I think the classic, at times, even the classic clichés
of all the great Westerns are all brought to their strengths,
rather than their weaknesses, to build this great horse opera.
- Like what? - I just think the different characters,
the roles of different minority actors
in almost clichéd roles.
The African American hand from the farm, the Chinese shop owner...
I think that...
...there are familiar roles that audiences in 1 969, when it opened,
were familiar with and were easy with
and played well with John Wayne's character taking centre stage.
We find that this is truly the imagined West,
where directors over the next few years
will go for a much more realistic West.
Well, if you were to make this movie today, remake it,
you'd probably make it where it happened.
I mean, you'd use Arkansas and the Indian Nation
and it would be a far different film because of its starkness
- and occasional beauty. - It'd be a smaller picture
and it probably wouldn't have won the Academy Award for John Wayne.
This celebrates the grandness of the West
and allows the filmmakers themselves to go on location
and use the West as their canvas,
just like the great artists like Thomas Moran
went out and painted the great... the great oils of the imagined West
that hang in our Interior Department.
Or John Ford, after World War II, got the opportunity to build Tombstone
- in Monument Valley. - With fake saguaros.
Which bugged me, by the way.
But I want to weigh in on this by saying
that I think we go in and out of this debate.
And maybe we've gotten, in our revisionist Westerns,
we got too gritty, we got too realistic.
An example I would give of that is The Alamo.
The Alamo is historically correct in every detail,
but I'm not sure it works as a good movie.
And somehow we've got to get that balance back
or at least go back to painting a big picture on a big canvas
so that we can tell larger truths.
And I don't like inaccurate clothing, inaccurate guns, inaccurate locations.
I mean, that's geographically obscene to me
that Arkansas is actually in Colorado.
But it's a great movie, and if you just kind of suspend disbelief
and go along with it as a great Western story,
that's when it works.
That's what Henry Hathaway and Hal Wallis...
...they bought the novel to make a great Western.
And if you're gonna make a great Western,
you need to shoot it in the big lands of Colorado
and Arizona and Montana,
and that's what the world imagines the West is.
The rest of the world can't imagine Arkansas as the West.
But they can imagine the West as John Ford created it
in Monument Valley and Henry Hathaway has here
in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado.
I was so disappointed when I made my first trip to Texas
and got to Austin and I went, "This looks like Iowa,
without the Norwegians."
Now, here comes one of the really, truly great
character actors of all time.
I happen to know Strother. I just loved him.
Not a lot of people know that this man was a champion diver
- at Michigan State, I believe. - Wow.
But what a wonderful human being he was. And what a great actor.
Yeah. He is stellar in this. Did he ever win an Academy Award?
- I don't know. - I don't think he did.
Nobody will ever forget him in Cool Hand Luke.
Yep.
This is some of the great dialogue in the film.
Soliloquies, right out of the best...
Nobody could make those faces like Strother when he reacted.
J. Noble Daggett.
- It's a great scene. - Yes, it really works.
Now, the names are really good: J. Noble Daggett, the...
...Rooster Cogburn... Which, I'm not real sure
that there's a historical precedent for that name.
And he appears to be modelled after Heck Thomas.
That's right.
The famous... one of the Guardsmen of Oklahoma.
And worked for Judge Parker.
And was a southerner, very much like that.
But Rooster Cogburn is... I'm sorry, trumps Heck Thomas.
Heck Thomas is a great name, but it's hard to beat Rooster Cogburn.
It's hard to beat a lot of the names in this film.
Or in the novel.
Very nice scene, lit on both sides. You see that?
With the outdoors on either side?
Rather unique.
Winged Pegasus.
Once again, the language is just exemplary in this entire production.
What I like about Kim Darby throughout the film
is her consistency in her role.
She maintains a strength and vigour and determination
that is inspiring to anyone who has a goal they want to reach.
And I think that many people who went and saw this film
and have remained in love with it identify with this role.
Male or female.
Coming up here, we're gonna see one of her weaknesses, though,
rather painfully, in the production.
- You mean after this scene? - Coming up here.
You'll know it when you see it, but I'll point it out to you.
I think her acting with Strother is wonderful.
And I'm sure Strother brought it all out...
You know, they really worked together very well. Lots of chemistry there.
You know, it's like playing tennis.
When you play with somebody that's not as good as you are,
it brings you down to their level,
but when you play with somebody really good, it brings your level up.
And that's really true in acting.
I think when she sent her father back on the train,
she's carrying his gun and she's off to get his two gold pieces.
But that gun remains a symbol of her father throughout the picture.
And his strength gives her fortitude wherever she goes.
And by the way, that gun is one super hog leg.
I like this, that he's making bacon there.
Nice little touch.
This is one of the best scenes, I think, in the film,
that establishes their relationship.
Yeah, his vulnerability here
is so un-John Wayne.
Very brave on his part.
And if you've ever been drunk, you've done that.
But none of us have that great Winchester hanging over us.
A baby.
You know, there's a wonderful rhythm to the dialogue in this,
- between the two of them. - Yeah.
She's not afraid of the man's world.
See that eye shot? That eye... That got him the Oscar, right there.
That little eye thing that he developed,
to step back and kind of look over the eye. That is so raw.
And such an insight into his character.
Sure reminds me of Wallace Beery playing Long John Silver
to Jackie Cooper's Jim.
He may have modelled that, exactly as you said.
Yeah, there's no doubt that Portis read a lot of Mark Twain.
And Robert Louis Stevenson.
You have to give a lot of credit to Henry Hathaway.
If you've read how Wayne felt about her...
I don't know how Hathaway felt about her,
but he certainly got the performances out of both of them
when they were in the same scene together.
I think the other great themes of this film that speak to the audience
is the journey. Americans are always on the move.
There's always transition in their lives. The 1 960s was an era of change.
Americans were going on a journey themselves
and having to face a lot of things that
they hadn't had to for a long time.
And this film allows Americans to go on a journey
and explore those changes together.
There would be another journey that would come out later...
...late that summer or early fall, called Easy Rider.
And that's kind of the turning it on its head, isn't it?
And this is the scene I was telling you about where
this is as close as she gets to a horse in the entire movie.
She just was deathly afraid of horses.
And knowing that and looking at that scene, she actually did a very good job,
but to know that she was deathly afraid there is...
...pretty amazing.
It's great, Bernstein's introduction to this scene.
The music.
Strother Martin.
Excellent exposition there.
- Notice the tempo. - Right.
Now, what is... Does anybody have the definition of a "thumper"?
- "He's a notorious thumper"? - Rounder.
Yeah, somebody who would thump somebody, rather than look at them.
You know, a fighter would be my guess.
"Rashly court them." Just excellent Victorian dialogue. Just excellent.
"You think I'm wrong?" "I think you're wrong-headed."
And that's how America felt right there, giving in to women.
OK, all right. You want an equal deal? OK.
That just sums up, to me, 1 968 to 1 975.
And here's the good ol' boy club...
...about to be invaded...
...by a spritely young lady.
Yeah, he used the word "jaybird" there.
What is the definition of a jaybird?
- A criminal. Somebody who... - No, that's a jailbird.
No, jaybird...
...is a cousin of that, I think.
Rooster Cogburn wants the treasure.
Very humourous.
See, that's just an American conversation
that captures the zeitgeist of what was actually going on in the country.
It's just brilliant.
- Around kitchen tables from... - Oh, yeah.
- From New York to Los Angeles. - And probably not said that well,
but that's what entertainment's all about.
How do you encapsulate that and spin it back out
in a darkened theatre, a bunch of people are nodding their head,
going, "Yep."
I think Rooster Cogburn's character is also familiar to movie audiences
because he's conflicted. He has to make choices between what is right and wrong
and that treasure waiting out there for him.
If he can make more money and bring all the men in,
he'll get that loot that he's always after.
The lawyer Daggett is always there.
A great running joke.
And then the payoff is brilliant.
There we go with Lucien Ballard's...
...and Elmer Bernstein's...
Ballard's cinematography, and Bernstein's score.
You know, they talk about in the real Old West, "He set a horse good."
And John Wayne sets a horse really good.
Look, he's posting there and he just makes it very nice.
Look at poor Glen.
Glen's kind of bouncing there, like an Arkansas bass player.
On a bad gig.
Now, I understand that this great ferry scene here is...
...is the last great recording of this crossing of this river.
That it's now under a reservoir in the mountains of Colorado.
Yeah, west of Gunnison, I believe, isn't it?
Between Montrose and Gunnison?
This is just prior to the damming of that.
I want you to watch a scene here that has to do with Kim Darby.
Here she comes. She's actually leading a horse.
Now, keep in mind she's deathly afraid of horses.
You know, I thought, when I saw this scene...
Most Westerns, when they go off on a journey like this,
they have a pack horse. And there was no pack horse on this one.
So I guess theyjust carried the food in their saddlebags
or they're gonna shoot it.
Well, the problem in Westerns is, and this gets asked a lot,
is, "Where are the pack horses?"
The problem is that they slow down the action.
The guys can't ride to that beautiful music and look free
when you're pulling a pack horse
and there's frying pans dangling off the back of it. That's not very sexy.
So the pack horse, although very accurate, has kind of...
It's like the wing window on a car. They've kind of gone away.
You know, you don't see those anymore.
And Wayne, Rooster Cogburn's character, will make reference later on
to his freighting days up and down the hills of Colorado.
Bob, I think your scene's coming up here, where...
Well, one of them is, yes.
And... she has to mount this horse and...
They had to have a plaster cast, was that right?
- Where they... Of her face? - For her double.
For the stunt double to wear in profile? Now, watch this now. They cut.
Now, this is the double, this is not her. Now, that's back to her.
Henry Hathaway loved using his full cast of ensemble actors.
The gentleman there appeared in films for 40 or 50 years
in Westerns as stunt men, stunt doubles
and sidekicks and side characters in numerous Westerns.
Including most of Henry Hathaway's pictures.
Now, see that guy wearing a cap there on the left? That's very accurate.
You don't see that in enough Westerns. There were a lot of caps in the West.
People don't normally know that. And more than you'd think.
I think that the whole scene with the ferry,
the ferryman plays a great role in the settling of the West
on our great federal roads that crisscrossed the West
before the railroad.
And if you controlled the ferry points, you were a wealthy man
in that part of the territory.
I want you to watch this. This was obviously a very cold scene to film.
When this horse gets out of the water, you can see its breath.
And this is Colorado, folks, and they're in the water.
But I want you to watch something as they get out of the water,
because it's gonna show up right afterwards.
Now, that girl is soaked, OK?
And it's a beautiful scene here when they pull out of the water, right...
I think it's right here. Might be one more cut.
I love watching these two strong American men
who we all identify with
becoming very uncomfortable with young Kim Darby.
- See the breath there? - Look at that.
Look at how cold... Now, that model or that rider is freezing.
Now, watch the water come off the horse here.
Watch the water come off the horse, and now watch the cut.
That little building there is a blow dryer and it blew her dry.
She's totally dry.
Just before this, Rooster Cogburn tells La Boeuf
how much he thinks that Kim Darby's character, Mattie Ross,
is remindful of him as a young man.
"She reminds me of me."
It's a great line. "Loaded down with fat men and iron."
Yep. There's the double getting on.
Yeah, before I knew that Kim Darby was doubled throughout the picture,
I was gonna give her a lot of credit for being quite the horsewoman.
Well, they did a good job on the mask.
- Look at that shot right there. - Yeah.
That's why you go to the mountains of Colorado to film a Western.
It's really a wonderful score.
You know, a lot of things came together on this movie, didn't they?
I mean, from the book to the screenplay, the right actors, right director.
Right out of Mark Twain.
I love that, "brushpopper."
Somebody who'd pop a shot from the brush and then run.
A brushpopper.
Rooster Cogburn suddenly becoming the father figure in her life.
Don't you love the wide angles of Hathaway and Lucien Ballard?
You know, I think probably the first Western
that really wanted to go and show this great country and colour
was Shane with George Stevens.
- When they went to the Grand Tetons. - Right.
And... from that time on, it's...
- ...lush and beautiful. - One of the things
I judge a good Western on is, are the stoves working?
And I love it when the smoke's coming out of there.
That just gives it a little... just a little bit more accuracy.
You know, one of the things I always feel
should be done in Westerns is that the clothing should look like
- they've been worn for a few days. - Yeah.
Everybody always looks so clean.
You know, they go around and around on that.
They've tested when it's dirty and people don't like to see it.
And so it's funny that it ends up there.
You know, you end up in this kind of, like, netherworld in between
where they never really get that right.
I can't think of a Western where they really got it right.
Here's our family that's come together.
Yeah, that's right.
He offers her the stew.
Now, was that her riding there? It looked like her.
Or was that the plaster cast?
Looked like that might have been her. 'Course they were just walking, but...
What young man wouldn't want to be John Wayne,
leading across the West, free,
living your own code of life?
I think Americans loved going to this film when it opened.
Gave them a great escape to their own backyard and their beautiful grand West.
Allowed them to remember how to laugh...
...how to celebrate themselves as Americans in a very trying time.
And who better than John Wayne to lead us back to ourself
and remind us of our goodness as a country?
You know, one of the great things about this is that he...
...he has a role in which he is not necessarily self-deprecating. He...
He's playing John Wayne, but he could go over the top so easily
and he never does. He just stays right where he should be.
Too bad he made Green Beret.
- And... - Isn't that right after this?
- No, it's actually right before. - He made Green Beret before this?
And he needed this role to bring his career back to...
- Wow. That's a bookend. - ...to where he needed it.
Man, because that... He's awful in that. He's bloated, he's...
...is goofy. And this redeems him, right here.
- He's still bloated. - Well...
Well, but he carries this a little bit better.
He does it... But it's... He's Rooster Cogburn.
- Well, the great critics... - It's wonderful.
The great critics who had grown up with John Wayne
as boys and girls, who had written him off the year before,
disappointed with his role in Green Berets,
welcomed him back with open arms with this role,
and, for many, they realise how important John Wayne is to them
and the American film audience. Not only to Americans, but worldwide.
John Wayne was truly a man of the people.
Well, he taught himself all... the way he talked, the way he walked.
He was a real student of himself and how he appeared on the film.
I read that he once said that he really tried to sell sincerity
and he really tried to listen.
And movies are about reaction.
There's that Sharps rifle.
You said in the book that has a significance.
- It's a Sharps Repeater? - Yes.
And the Sharps rifle here is real representative of the differences
between Wayne and Campbell. New technology and old technology.
The differences in the two men's generation.
And... Kim Darby's practicality.
"Too much gun." I love that line. That's really an accurate line.
"Too much gun," meaning he shot it and ruined the meat.
- Too much gun. - Stunning shots here.
Here we are, using the American West as a canvas, like the great artists.
Well, it's a great combination
of Lucien Ballard, Henry Hathaway and Elmer Bernstein.
It shows you that film is a collaborative effort,
that you get this and then you add the music and it adds to the beauty.
It's interesting that the two men are riding in front
and she's back a little ways.
I wonder how that would play if she was in the front.
- It wouldn't play, would it? - No.
So it's interesting how the horse politics, you know,
certain sidekicks in the old '40s movies
were required by the contract to ride behind the star.
This shot right here...
I believe Henry Hathaway studied some of the great landscape artists
of the 1 9th Century that brought the American West to the world
and recreated this shot right here.
Just like Thomas Moran did in his great oils.
This has a very Thomas Moran colour scheme, if I may say.
Look at that frame there, where he frames them up.
That's a huge canvas, and they're very small,
and yet you can see them perfectly.
Then we get the pan-down to the place.
- There's your fire. Your smoke. - Yeah. Got the stoves working.
Well, they had to have the stoves working in this one, as you'll soon see.
Who wouldn't want a rifle and an eye patch and a hat like that?
That actually happened a lot in the Old West. That was very common.
People not being hospitable.
And there was an unwritten code that you were supposed to be very generous
to people as they came by.
But a lot of trouble, a lot of wars,
range wars and stuff, started just like this.
Always had the coffee on for a visitor.
It was expensive and hard to get,
but the greatest compliment you could offer someone
was a rare cup, a good cup of coffee off your hot stove.
Good hoof sounds. I don't know if they foleyed that in...
I was just thinking the same thing.
I like good hoof sounds, like the old Tim McCoy movies and stuff
had great hoofs. I assume they were fake,
but they make me feel warm when I see them.
A lot better than the Spaghetti Westerns where they had the guy in the studio
that was doing it with his hands.
A lot of people don't realise that in the Spaghetti Westerns,
they built the sound totally from scratch. They film without any sound.
And so Sergio Leone replaced pistol shots with rifle shots,
and for the rifles, he did cannon shots.
- Did you know that? - No.
Marshal Rooster Cogburn, in action.
Yeah, it seemed very believable.
Well, they set him up really well in the opening time that you saw him.
First scene he was in, where he kicked the guy in the butt.
- Remember when he was in shackles? - Yes.
That lets you know without saying anything who Rooster Cogburn was.
He's one of the few actors where you see him and you know who he is.
He brings all of that with him and all that back-story.
You couldn't capture this scene on the back lot.
- Yeah. - This is truly a location scene
that you'll see repeated throughout many of Sam Peckinpah's
up-and-coming Westerns, where you're...
And Sam had developed in Ride the High Country as well.
Now, if you think you recognise that guy on the right, one of the outlaws,
that's because that's Dennis Hopper.
This is very close to Easy Rider, isn't it? Is this...?
This came out... they both came out the same year.
Dennis Hopper was a real favourite with Henry Hathaway
because in his early career in 1 958, he made a very fine little Western
called From Hell to Texas.
Hathaway did. And he had Dennis Hopper in it.
And they got into a real brawl in that movie, not physically, but verbally.
And Hathaway won.
But he respected Hopper for his independence and liked him.
So for... thereafter, when Henry Hathaway was making a Western...
I believe Dennis Hopper was in The Sons of Katie Elder as well.
...Hathaway would hire him.
- I think Dennis Hopper's... - Great line.
...role in this picture is one of the best characters in the whole film.
Believe that's a '94 Winchester, isn't it?
Which would put it outside the realm of this.
This picture took place in 1 880? 1 878?
And Jeremy Slate's here, too. We can talk about him.
Jeremy Slate was also part of the Hathaway film family.
Bob, do you have any feeling...
Did the wardrobe costumer in this do a good job with the saddles?
Next time we see the horses...
I know a lot of people in a number of movies that are period pieces
will notice the saddles are like 1 940s, '50s, '60s...
- Right, the rollback. - Yeah.
The rollback. I'm a real...
You're wearing a... you're riding in a Porter Arizona Roper
with a low backside to it and not a high cantle.
Not a high horn.
We'll take a look here when they go back out.
Or the double, you know, the Texas fire rig.
These men aren't used to seeing young women out in the Indian Territory
and aren't really sure what to do with her.
These men live a life of violence.
Listen to the music in the background here. Very good for this scene.
Yeah, it's impending.
Now, when they filmed that, and they cut those fake fingers,
they actually, one of the takes,
they hit Kim Darby in the face with the fingers. Did you hear that?
- Is that right? - Yeah.
Jeremy Slate and Dennis Hopper are two of the great characters in this movie
- and you wanna... - They're totally believable.
Isn't that great? "Met a circus rider in Austin, Texas."
- He's dying. - Yeah.
That happened a lot, though, in the actual real Old West.
Did they have names for trains, like "the Katie Flyer"?
Oh, yeah. Trains were very personal
and they were such an integral part of their life
and they'd come in every day and they'd give them names.
I know in my generation, it was the "Super Chief" and the "Chief"
and the "Commodore Vanderbilt,"
but I didn't know in those days whether they gave them names.
We name everything. We do. Think about it, you know?
If it's important, we're gonna name it.
We name our cars, you know?
Again, the open door is wonderful. You know?
In the old days, they would've gone back to the studio and shot that
with a matte out in the background.
I think that is a matte shot.
It's lit a little bit too well for being in the actual cabin. That's my opinion.
But it's done well.
I think it's the actual location.
I think that's a matte painting, but I could be wrong.
Well, wait till we get to the night scene...
- Tell me what you think. - OK.
There's a little foley there.
I like this, how he pulls up the weeds. Watch this.
Wanga.
- See, nobody could walk like that. - No.
And, you know, it's interesting... This man is working on one lung.
This is after his operation.
Interesting that he smoked a cigarette earlier,
'cause he was really adamant against smoking in his last years,
'cause of what it did to him.
I think he was still smoking at this time.
- Smoked five packs a day. - Camels. Camels.
Man.
So they moved this location, I understand, to California.
This is actually shot just outside of Mammoth Lakes, California,
along that... near the Owens River Valley.
Really? This is not Colorado?
Interesting.
It could pass.
Well, was this the end of the movie, then?
I mean, it began to snow in Colorado, so they already had planned
to do these shots in California? Or did they start there?
I'm still trying to look at those saddles.
I'll have you a verdict here in a minute.
This is a great shot. I love the dust blowing up. Great vertical riding.
That's obviously Kim's double there, evidently.
We had a question about why they always mount on the left.
And... the closest reason I could come up to is that
cowboys put all their gear on the right side.
That's where their rifles were and their ropes and stuff,
and so they would obviously mount on the other side.
Now, some old cowboys say that horses are left-side dominant,
as opposed to people. Most people are right-side dominant.
And so cowboys mounted on the left
because it gave them a little extra edge to balance.
But did you ever wonder about that, why they always mounted on the left?
I've always mounted a horse on the left. You don't question it. You just do it.
But you know what? Now, they go both sides.
Well, if you go to... a lot of calf ropers these days
always mount on the other side.
1 974, Roy Cooper dismounted on the right side
so he wouldn't have to go under the rope.
First time, and since then it's totally opened it up
and now horse trainers train both sides.
But in the Old West, mounting on the left was the law.
Now this one, to me, always felt that it was one of the few things in this movie
that was done on a soundstage.
This is a great scene, where he talks about himself.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, great exposition and he does it well.
One of the things you want to do about a character when you're writing
is never tell everything about him in the first five pages.
You can wait two or three chapters or more,
let people get interested in the character and then
let the character talk about himself or herself.
One of the best scenes he's ever done.
For a man who was... didn't like to say a lot of words.
A "dee-vorce."
Mattie Ross trying to establish the moral code here for John Wayne.
To Rooster Cogburn, who's lived his whole life on his own code.
Actually, there's a historic precedence for this with Cole Younger,
who rode with the James Younger gang,
and he toured the country with 1 1 bullets still in him
on What Life Has Taught Me, and one of the things that he said was,
on his speeches, on his trump, was that he always robbed at high noon.
He never stealthily went around and he always robbed corporations, banks,
and he never robbed individual people.
And that's essentially the speech that Rooster Cogburn is giving here,
so there is historic precedent for that.
The Robin Hoods of the American West.
Robbing from the rich and sharing it with the poor.
Wonderful music to lead into that scene.
I mean, nobody could do it like Elmer Bernstein.
It's like a... These bandits are like a ship coming up over the horizon.
There's Robert Duvall.
This is actually one of his most understated and overlooked roles,
I believe, but establishes him for decades, though,
in strong Western roles
that he has... Robert Duvall has continued to examine,
as one of our great Western icons.
Some would say, luckily for his career,
he doesn't kill John Wayne in this movie.
They've got rollback saddles. Those are not highbacks.
I have a bone to pick about those.
They were very prevalent in the '50s and '60s.
The Roper saddles have a faster dismount,
but most of the saddles in the real Old West were highbacks.
And I always like to see the accurate highback saddles
when I'm looking at a Western.
They're very accurate with Duvall because in the book
they describe the chaps he wore. And they kept right to it.
There's another Mexican Bob.
It is during this fight scene here that we see...
...Rooster Cogburn's character and Ned Pepper's character
share a few moments in respect between outlaws,
each on one side of the law.
Great stunt work here. That rider there, fall twice.
The first fall with Duvall looked like the horse rolled right over
the top of the stuntman, which is a very dangerous thing to happen,
having a 1 ,500 pound animal roll over the top of you.
Now, this has historic precedence.
A guy riding back right into the teeth of fire.
Emmett Dalton did this in Coffeyville when the Daltons tried to rob two banks.
This has a little bit different outcome, though.
- Don't you think it's interesting... - This is quite a job for a stuntman.
This horse... I guess he gets on him bareback?
Well, they didn't...
They showed Duvall riding away, or just getting a horse?
Just in a long shot.
He threw the guy, the guy came back for him,
he threw him down and got on his horse and left.
Listen to La Boeuf's spurs.
They made quite a thing in the book out of his spurs.
As if it was a... made him from Texas.
Big Spanish spurs.
Rooster's jealous.
I think one of the themes in the second half of this picture
is our family here of Rooster, La Boeuf and Mattie.
With...
...the great Rooster Cogburn trying to teach lessons of life,
the survival in the unforgiving West.
And their generational differences between the three of them.
You know, he shot the horse and someone was asking me about,
is that really accurate in the Old West?
And it actually was a lot more accurate.
That happened more often than not.
But it's so brutal that most moviemakers don't show it.
So I admire them for doing that here.
Here's a scene along the wagon road.
Always have to keep your eyes open along these wagon roads for the...
...tracks of camera cars.
Forest roads leading up into the mountains.
Here's where John Wayne reveals he has a relationship and a past
with Ned Pepper. He knows him.
And I think that this scene really reveals some differences
between Glen Campbell and John Wayne's characters,
and the conflict that John Wayne is living with from his past...
Well, we already know that he robbed a bank and... and so...
Now, we know he rode with Captain Quantrill
and was part of the guerrilla war out on the border states of the Civil War.
So he's a man with a past.
Much of which he hides in his whisky drinking and his bravado.
And what guy can't relate to that?
Well, do you think that Ned Pepper possibly served with...
...Rooster with Quantrill?
That that's where they met? That's where their origins were?
And then their paths separated at the end of the war and...
Is that in the book? 'Cause it's not here.
No, I think you just... there's an inference.
It's inferred.
And why didn't Wayne shoot Ned Pepper instead of the young boy?
Would've violated the code. Wasn't done at the right time or the right place.
Got our stoves going.
The interiors are great in this film.
Depicting the merchants' role on the edge of the West.
Interesting pronunciation of "bury."
Bury. "Bury."
I love that line. "When he isn't currying hair."
This is particularly brutal here with the...
...recognizing who the outlaws are.
- And that happened a lot. - Isn't that how they did it?
- Yep. - Even display them on the town square.
- Yeah. - For people to come by and identify.
There's a rogues ward photo gallery from the Indian Nations, by the way,
where they would just prop 'em up, tie their hands together,
take photos of them.
And they had to have photos by the 1 890s to get the rewards,
'cause people were... There's a photo of a rollback saddle.
Should have a high cantle in the back.
I like the leggings on that guy in the background. That's very accurate.
There's Mattie bringing Rooster Cogburn back to the moral centre.
One of the worst things you could do in the Old West
was put somebody afoot. So that was a high insult.
They had to train horses, by the way, to carry dead bodies like that.
- Oh, really? - Horses do not...
- Would spook? - Well, horses spook anyway.
Take out a gum wrapper and a horse will take off.
But, yeah, putting a dead body, bring a dead body and put it on a horse,
try that sometime. It's not...
They don't... Takes some special training.
One thing I feel about Hathaway in the way these scenes operate
is that everybody...
I mean, despite what they may say about Kim Darby and her lines,
everybody seemed to really know their lines and were well-rehearsed.
I think she conveys a wonderful sense of who she is.
I do not see any disparity.
There was some talk about her coming with different looks on different days.
But I don't see any of that. She's... She's very...
Very well prepared and
the scenes were clearly blocked out very well so that...
Of course, Lucien Ballard, probably having worked with Hathaway before,
they knew each other. Kind of like a catcher and a pitcher...
Where are you gonna take this shot? What's your opening shot?
We're gonna have the master shot, then we move in.
And it's so important to have somebody like Lucien there,
who made a lot of directors look great
with the way he blocked out his shots, his lighting, and...
He didn't have a lot of night shooting in this, either.
Love the fact that we have the imagined West here
up in the high mountain country of Colorado is...
...doubling for the Indian Territory of Oklahoma.
And by this time,
we are completely enamoured with our location and...
- Totally accepting. - ...have forgotten...
...forgotten that even the film began in Arkansas.
Here's your reference, Bob, to...
...ponying horses and... working your way across the West,
you have to carry things on the back of horses and mules.
Yep.
He's good. I've never seen Wayne in finer form.
And it's so hard for me to believe that he did Green Beret before this!
I mean, that is... from here to the moon, to me, in distance.
Bob, this film actually launches him
into his last decade of filmmaking,
in which, after True Grit, John Wayne is able to celebrate himself on film
and in his characters and establish himself as another...
...a hero for another generation of young boys and girls across America.
How many Westerns did he do after this one?
Quite a few.
He was making Rio Lobo when he got the word that he got the Oscar.
And that was a kind of a congratulatory movie with Howard Hawks,
who was in his final days.
- Wayne made... - What else does he do?
Wayne makes about 12 more pictures after this, and ten out of 12,
I believe, are Westerns or 1 1 ... nine out of 1 3 are Westerns.
- And including Big Jake and... - Chisum.
- The War Wagon.
The War Wagon was made before this.
El Dorado.
And of course, The Shootist.
I believe El Dorado was made before this as well.
Because El Dorado was one of the first pictures he made after losing his lung.
And Robert Mitchum was very afraid of him becoming sick in the stunts
up in Durango, Mexico.
It was when he went in the water, after he'd lost his lung, four months later.
After he'd had the lung taken out.
You know, Mia would've been good, but I think this was...
She had a... Kim Darby has an innocence to her.
Yeah.
An innocence and a tomboy-ishness and a way to assert herself.
Well, I can hardly believe she was 21 .
I certainly could fall for her being 16, 1 5.
So I think that plays into it.
She plays... Her vulnerability as a woman in this male-dominated
outlaw West is never more apparent than right here.
As well as her determination to...
...to be a young woman and make her own way,
despite the protests of La Boeuf and Rooster Cogburn.
And ultimately it's her vulnerability here that gets her into trouble.
That's a nice tracking shot.
Despite all her strengths and her bravado, she remains innocent.
A very symbolic descent.
People don't use zoom shots like that much anymore.
Are they coming back in favour now? Have you noticed that?
There was a long time, they wouldn't do... Zooming was just, like, gone.
Well, Hathaway doesn't use a lot of close-ups. That's for sure.
We should probably talk about that hog leg she pulls out here.
That's a Dragoon, right?
What model is that? That is a monster pistol.
In the book, it's pre-Civil War, is it?
It's a gun that her father carries at Chickamauga,
and is probably a personal sidearm that he had brought with him to the war.
And purchased before the war broke out.
And is a family heirloom that had brought him good luck
and he passed on to his daughter.
You know, the biggest pistol I think I've seen is a Walker Colt.
That looks bigger than that.
And I'm not a gun guy, so I don't...
Man that's a big hog leg.
That seems so real to me.
You know, most Westerns, "Oh, you got me," you know?
Or some cliché. "I didn't think you'd do it." He says it... he sells it.
I think the first time a gun ever sounded like that
- to audiences was in Shane. - That's right.
When Jack Palance guns down Elisha Cook in the mud.
Here's our strong young woman of the West.
She's wonderful. I mean, that's not an easy scene to do.
I think most of us who like Robert Duvall in Westerns would've
liked to have seen his character a lot more in this film.
- Yeah. - But...
Of course, that's good acting, though.
When you want to see more of someone, that's...
Somebody's doing their job right.
Personally, I want to see more of Mexican Bob.
I think that character's fantastic. I like his hat.
"I'll stove in your head." That's an accurate saying.
Cowboy saying is, "He rode stove up."
"Stove" is a common word, 'cause stoves were everywhere.
Ned Pepper in this dominant position here.
He is now in charge.
This dialogue is right out of the novel. Just brilliant.
And you're right. They're talking to each other like they know each other.
And whether it's stated in the script or the book or not, it's implied.
It's the code of the West between...
...the men who'd fought together before the war,
then fought against each other in the settling of the West.
They filled a vacuum of the lawlessness in the territories
and it was fought out on the Plains and in the mountains.
Something you've explored a lot, Bob, in your research on the outlaw West.
Where there wasn't law, these...
...these outlaws, these pirates of the mountains and the Great Plains,
they went out of their way to fill the vacuum with their own power struggle.
I think the thing you realise when you study the history of it
is how interchangeable they were. How they went from side to side.
There's just case after case of these good bad men in actual history.
And whether you're looking at Wyatt Earp where he was a pimp,
and, you know, wanted for murder in Arizona, and was also a good lawman.
And there's others like Frank Canton, even Heck Thomas,
who we believe the Rooster Cogburn character was based on,
had that dual side.
Well, Bob, one of the things... How many times do you see a Western
when the gang... every one in the gang has his own individual personality?
And this one, Lucky Ned Pepper's gang, has
Mexican Bob,
has the guy that crows like a rooster, or whatever is going on.
- I think he has a brother there, too. - Yes.
But this is really a gang where everybody is not just a face on a horse
- and a gun. - Yeah, it's really fleshed out.
- They all have personalities. - But I agree.
I want to see more of them. I think they're great.
So we're in a new location here. This is a mountain pass.
Mountains above the town of Ouray, Colorado.
What are you, up about 7,000 feet? Something like that?
I think you gotta be closer to 9,000 feet here.
The mountains surrounding the shots in the film are over 14,000 feet.
Wow.
It was a tough film on all the actors, pushing them physically day after day.
The high elevations and the change in seasons.
There's a moral code that goes back for decades
amongst these roaming bands of men in the West.
That go back to the mountain men that...
...has a great understanding of the naturalness of death and dying.
And that when your time has come, it'll happen and you have to move on.
Not a lot of sympathy for it.
- Not a lot of... - Yeah, watch out for yourself.
That's right.
But, you know, in spite of that, there's many cases where guys rode back, too.
Will Carver comes to mind at the Turkey Creek shootout in northern New Mexico.
He went and saved both his...
...Sam Ketchum and Elza Lay, he went back and got 'em.
But was there ever a fight,
like the one we're about to see coming up?
One against four on horseback?
You know, I can think of several, actually.
One that comes to mind is the gunfight at Blazer's Mill,
where Buckshot Roberts faced off against 1 3 guys.
He lost his life, but he went up against them.
The outlaw code is still filled with honour.
He's drawn the short stick, but he still has to act within their code of honour,
the code between men.
Whether you're on the right or the wrong side of the law,
you can see that relationship and that understanding
between Lucky Ned Pepper and Rooster Cogburn goes deep.
You know, my wife is a therapist
and she would say that this guy is a classic narcissist.
Everything's about him. It's like he's never done anything wrong.
He blames... He's got an excuse for everything.
I love that, that he has that distinctive little nuance.
- She's big on washing her hands. - She represents the purity of the West.
Its innocence.
Excellent foreshadowing here.
Don't show anything unless it's gonna show up later.
This is just off the Million Dollar Highway, I believe,
on the way to Ouray.
Ouray is O-U-R-A-Y. It's between Silverton and Ridgway.
It's in south-central Colorado.
Beautiful country, and they call it the Million Dollar Highway
because it really has no business being there in that really steep country.
I always heard that they also call it the Million Dollar Highway because
- they paved over millions in gold... - Oh, is that right?
...on the stretch between Ouray and Silverton.
Determined to bring him back alive. He had an opportunity to kill him.
See that? "Everything's against me!" See? He's a classic narcissist.
Man, that Dragoon is a big pistol.
And she will not be separated from it.
This is the scene. This is the classic scene.
I love that mountain behind him.
This is a...
That is Chimney Rock,
and this is a place called Debbie's Meadow.
And no one locally... I love how he cocks that gun.
No one locally seems to know where that came from.
Although, Debbie Reynolds had a ranch nearby there
and she filmed a movie in that location. That's a place called Debbie's Meadow.
Well...
Debbie Reynolds said Henry Hathaway was the toughest director she ever knew.
So that's interesting. Rooster has a way out.
Yes, and he doesn't take it.
I love that.
You won't get hurt. I'm not fighting you. I'm here to get the other guys.
That's so Western.
"...hand, you son of a bitch."
And there he puts the reins in his teeth,
which actually happened in the Old West.
The James Gang in Northfield, they were famous for that,
for putting the reins in their teeth
and pulling out two pistols and firing at the same time.
Classic Old West manoeuvring, although that, cocking a rifle on the run,
is a pretty trick.
And I wouldn't recommend firing a 30-30 out of your hand like that.
But boy, it sure looks good, doesn't it?
I believe this is one of the greatest Western gunfights ever filmed.
- Yeah. - It sure is dramatic.
There goes Mexican Bob. He goes, "I don't want any part of this."
Now, I love that line that Duvall said:
"Do you think one in four is a dogfall?"
And we looked this up in the book and that's what he says, "dogfall."
- I have no idea what a dogfall is. - I would guess...
It's just a wild guess, but I would guess that means that you think
that this is taking down a dog.
You know, you think it's so easy that you're just gonna take a dog down.
But I could be wrong.
But it, you know, whether you know what it means or not,
it's just great vernacular.
Shooting of a man's horse, this vulnerability of a cowboy...
...on the ground, trapped by his best friend.
Now, that line, "I'm shot to pieces," that's said a lot in the West.
You'll see actual court reporting
where people will say...
In fact, Cole Younger said that in Northfield.
He said, "Come out of the bank. We're being shot to pieces."
- It's very accurate vernacular. - That scene before is very poignant.
An empty battlefield with a lonely horse running off, riderless.
Now, I heard that they actually rigged her up for that scene
and pulled her backwards. And that was a surprise to her.
- She didn't know it. Is that right? - That's what I understand.
Looked like it.
I'm not sure if it was there she was pulled back
or if it was down by the river when she first fired her father's gun.
Well, when I looked at that one,
it didn't seem like she was reallyjerked back.
This one she really had a tendency to go backwards
- where she didn't want to go. - Right,
they really pulled her back quickly into this pit.
I love the fact that these snakes are surrounded by skeletons.
It really does remind me of the great pirate pictures.
Again, reminded me of watching Treasure lsland
and Jim and Long John Silver.
Yeah, it does have a pirate movie feel.
For many people, this is one scene with the snakes
that they remember the most, especially those who have phobias with snakes.
It... I think that...
...we've seen a lot more Westerns since then,
but this was a very, very strong scene for many.
One of the scariest in the Westerns for many years.
Not the smartest thing to do, start beating a snake.
Especially a rattler. Most rattlers don't want anything to do with you.
Well, in the book, they were young rattlers.
They were taken out of their hibernation.
Which had much stronger venom.
But you couldn't have young, small rattlers making a... in a movie.
Gotta be big and...
Big snakes.
Here's Rooster Cogburn, the superhero.
Rope in hand, he's got... He has the tools...
...to... for victory.
Wherever he goes, whether it's on horseback, or now...
...with his trusty lariat.
Coming to rescue his adopted daughter, Mattie Ross.
I believe this was one of the only scenes actually not shot on location,
but they filmed it back in California on the backlot.
On a soundstage. They recreated this cave.
They did a good job.
It's very believable.
I'm not sure about the snake part.
I love the names they call each other throughout the movie.
Jaybird. Brushpopper.
Horse killer.
You know, nicknames are always a sign of friendship in the West.
And if you've earned the trust of another man,
and you give 'em a nickname, it's something that may stick for your life.
You know, some of the real nicknames are fantastic,
like "Dirty Sock Jack." That's an actual nickname in the Old West.
But my favourite, I think, is "Bad Bladder Allen."
How would you like that moniker?
And you know the guy thought he had a really good one,
that was gonna be remembered for the ages. But it didn't quite last.
I think it's real... La Boeuf's death is really, for me, anti-climatic.
It's... It's a very stark moment in this film...
...in which Wayne has to choose between a proper burial
and saving the young Kim Darby's life.
Is that true to the book?
- No. - What happens in the book?
La Boeuf stays behind when they go to get the doctor.
- And... - He's not dead?
He's never seen again. No, he's not dead.
She's faced a lot of growing up in a very short time period.
Now, for the first time in the film, she has to depend on somebody else.
Really, for her own well-being, where up to this point,
she's been the one determined to take care of everyone else.
Now, that's the old school. When I grew up in the Boy Scouts,
that was the thing. You cut the X on the actual fang bite.
The fang marks. And then you're supposed to suck the venom out.
And then tie a tourniquet above it so that the blood doesn't get to the heart.
And, of course, that's been since misproven, disproven, as a...
...decent method to deal with snake bite.
I think he puts a poultice on there of maybe even some chewing tobacco.
Was that what it was when he spit on it?
Yeah, you see him pull something out of his mouth,
out of his pocket and put it in his mouth
when he goes to... before he goes to tend to her wounds.
That's a lot of weight for a horse.
A 200-pound man.
Lot of work for a couple of stunt people, too.
Yeah.
Look at that moving shot. I mean, they are going full speed there.
That looks like it's back in California.
That also happened a lot in the Old West, riding horses down.
Theyjust, you know... It was a much brutal-er time.
Every cowboy had his string, pulled out of the remuda.
It wasn't uncommon for them to ride a horse down.
It was just... You see it, you read about it more than you'd like to.
Now, this is the only scene coming up that kind of strikes me as half-false.
And I don't... Is it in the book where he meets the people at the lake?
And why he just wouldn't say, "I've got somebody with a snake bite.
Help me take her to the doctor." I'm sure that they would.
But notice how he handles it.
Well, maybe he... I think that's one of the unanswered questions, Bob.
Since the territory is supposed to be filled with outlaws,
Rooster Cogburn trusts no one
and would rather live and die and fight by his own code
than... than ask permission.
Rooster Cogburn needs to explain himself to no one.
He'll act first, explain later.
And that, my friends, is how we got into Iraq.
I think this scene right here, this scene Henry Hathaway shoots here
is a classic, right out the 1 920s Tom Mix silent pictures.
1 91 5.
- It has a very Tom Mix look. - There's your stove.
Yep. Lot of stove action in this movie. I like that.
I also like the natural lighting. I think that Hathaway is...
While this is towards the end of his career,
he and Lucien Ballard really explore the new way of making films
using so much natural light.
Wasn't that day for night there?
I think so.
You know, John Wayne said a really great quote about the West:
"The West: the very words go straight to that place of the heart
where Americans feel the spirit of pride in their Western heritage,
the triumph of personal courage over any obstacle, whether nature or man."
I love that quote.
You know, he was actually a pretty astute guy, wasn't he?
He understood his role.
Here's the modern West. The legal West.
The last thing anyone wants to see.
See that look there with the one eye, that's just...
...pretty dang cool.
I love the bandana. The vest. The badge.
Things wrap up rather nicely in this, don't they? It's very satisfying.
There's a lot of things in the denouement, whatever they call it.
Come together very sweetly.
I love the nickname he has for her, Baby Sister.
Oh, this is a classic scene, and the word is that
they had already filmed this scene,
but then Hathaway woke up and it had snowed.
The production was way late in the year
and they went out and he took a look at this and said,
"We have got to re-do this scene
because this really brings everything together."
Look at that mountain back there. That is just beautiful.
It really captures the grandeur of our American West.
Everything that people love about this film.
See now, what is she referring to? "It's not what we ordered."
On there, that appears to be the date 1 880 that he died,
which would put the story in that time frame.
Do you suppose that that date's not right and they added that dialogue
to cover that gaff?
'Cause she says, "It wasn't what we ordered and we had him change it."
Could be.
But I tell you, what's great about this scene is there's absolutely no music.
It's just the wind, the horse and two people.
Now, we get a little bit.
You know, that's the genius of good moviemaking,
is to know what to leave out.
And when to bring it in.
Because your... a typical auteur would have music lying all over this,
you know what I mean? And to leave it out, that's genius.
See, I like how she pointed it at him. She has no gun etiquette there.
She knows nothing about gun safety.
He reacts backwards, like, "What the heck are you pointing that at me for?"
That's a great little nuance there that I'm sure he added on the moment.
Very symbolic that she hands him the gun,
which was her father's pistol.
It's a beautiful scene, created totally by the writer and the director.
Now, you guys were telling me he does this stunt himself?
- Is that true? - Yep.
Watch this.
This is really him?
This is one of the great scenes of John Wayne's career.
True epitaph for him as a great Western actor.
And... my hero.
This has been a great afternoon, spending it with you guys.
Well, the last line of this book is:
"This ends my true account
of how I avenged Frank Ross's blood
over in the Choctaw Nation when the snow was on the ground."
And I'm Bob Boze Bell and I had a great time.
This was just a hoot and a half.
And I'm Jeb Rosebrook and I'm just happy to be here.
I'm Stuart Rosebrook and thanks, Jeb and Bob.
I couldn't have spent a better afternoon with two friends
and watching my hero, John Wayne, on the big screen.
Well, heck, let's watch it again.