True Grit (2010)

For my review of the 1969 classic, click here

What It's About:
In the 1870s, 14-year old Mattie Ross (Hallie Steinfeld) travels to the town where her father was killed - Fort Smith, Arkansas - and hires a whiskey-drinking US Marshall (Jeff Bridges) to bring the killer (Josh Brolin) to justice. The two are joined by a Texas ranger LaBeef (Matt Damon) and they all travel through the wilderness on horseback to find the drifter.

My Take (some spoilers ahead):
I was really looking forward to seeing this movie ever since I saw this awesome trailer ---

If they gave Oscars for Best Trailer - this one should win, hands down!! And I was not disappointed when I saw it on opening night. Jeff Bridges really is the perfect choice I think to play this character. I wonder if he ever met John Wayne through his dad; I'm thinking that Lloyd Bridges and Wayne did some pictures together, but I can't think of any at the moment. Will have to look this up.

I don't think it's unfair to call this 2010 movie a "remake" of the original. That's what everyone is calling it. The directors of the new film, Joel and Ethan Coen, would like us to believe that this a retelling of the novel. It is, but I'm sure they watched the original film at some point, and thought to themselves how they can improve. My library had a copy of the original novel, so I was able to read through and compare some of the parts with the written page.

Hallie Steinfeld and Barry Pepper, both deliver
Oscar-worthy performances

The scenes in the new film play out in almost the same order as the first film, with a few minor dramatic liberties.

If you've seen the first movie, much will be familiar - LaBeef spanks Mattie after she crosses the river on Little Blackie, just like in the first film, and Cogburn still calls him a "brushpopper". Jeff Bridges doesn't say, "She reminds me of me" but you know he's thinking that. And the iconic climax still has Cogburn taking the reins in his teeth, charging up against Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper) and three others (just as the book describes). I even wondered if this scene was filmed in the same field as the '69 film. It wasn't; it looks just like it.

The Coens add some interesting new elements with this version, which was co-produced by Steven Spielberg. They cast an age-appropriate actress for the part of head strong Mattie, and Hallie Steinfeld is very impressive. I'd like to see her get nominated for an Oscar. Barry Pepper is also excellent, as is the rest of the supporting cast.

John Carradine?

There are a few new interesting characters in this version, including a snoring "Grandma Turner", who we don't get to see in the original. There is also a medicine man who seems to be channeling the great character actor John Carradine. I really enjoyed these new elements, and was expecting such from a remake/retelling.

We also get to see an older version of Mattie (Elizabeth Marvel) at the end, and we learn that she loses her arm (it's not just broken like in the 1969 version). This ending is faithful to the book. LaBeef lives in the end, just as it's written (he dies in the '69 movie version).

I only wish the final scenes lasted a bit longer; the ending seemed to go by very fast after the final climatic sequence. I would have liked to have seen more scenes with this older Mattie character. In fact, I imagined what this story might be like as a 3 or 4-part TV miniseries. Seriously. If the Coens can add a bearskin-clad medicine man character and make him entertaining, why not have Cogburn and Mattie meet some other characters along the way? Show some flashbacks of Cogburn at the Green Frog. Bring back General Sterling Price, the cat!

Some of my favorite parts of the older movie - the scene in Chen's store and the dinner scene in the boarding house - are not in the new film (though the set designers did put in a deck of cards near Cogburn's bed). I recall reading a magazine article where the Coens said they didn't want to slow the film with scenes they felt were unnecessary. That must have included any scenes with Mattie back at home talking with her father before he gets killed.

Sideburns alert! With this outfit, you'll
think Matt Damon just stepped out of a
1960s western and into this picture!

A few things bothered me about the new version, but they weren't enough to spoil my enjoyment of the picture. For one, Bridges' mumbling is hard to understand at times. When this comes out on DVD I'll have to watch it again with "Subtitles: English" turned on. One of my friends thought he was channelling the "Karl Childers" character from Sling Blade.

Also he doesn't say how he lost his eye like in the first film (if he did, I missed it through the mumbling).

Another scene that struck me in a negative way was when Blackie dies and Cogburn goes to pick up Mattie - to me it almost looked like he was going to rape her, which would have been a bit of a disturbing deviation from the original story; thankfully that's not where that went. Also I thought Cogburn would have dropped dead from a heart attack after all that running and huffing and puffing after Blackie dies. The original movie showed them on a wagon for much of the way back, which is more faithful to the book.

In both films, Mattie watches a public execution / hanging in the beginning. In the book, several white men and one Indian is hung, and each of the three give their last public words. The 1969 does not feature any their last words nor the Indian. The 2010 version keeps the Indian and the last words of the two white men, but the last words of the Indian are "not allowed"; a black sack is placed on his head before he can say anything. But according to the novel, the last words of the Indian are: "I have repented my sins and soon I will be in heaven with Christ my savior. Now I must die like a man." Because this was eliminated, I'm not sure if the Coens were trying to express a message about the racism of the time, or to avoid the Christian testimony - which may have confused audiences - or both. Several people laughed at this scene, perhaps thinking this was Coen Brothers' dark humor at work.

Seems like both movie versions were trying to avoid some sort of controversy and failed to be faithful to the novel during this hanging scene.

I think if you liked the original movie, or if you just like westerns, you will enjoy this picture.

The music score by Carter Burwell is wonderful. It's a shame he is ineligible for an Oscar, simply because some of the arrangements borrow a few bars of the song "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", which is my favorite Gospel hymn.

I found some samples of the tracks online. These are from great moments in the movie:




This is "Little Blackie's" (Mattie's horse's) theme. This is played when Mattie goes to the stable:

This is the music played during the climatic "Fill Your Hands!" scene. Very exciting!

Read an essay comparing both films by Entertainment Weekly's Owen Glieberman

The Misfits (1961)

The film begins in a little apartment building in Reno, Nevada. We are introduced to Marilyn Monroe, and her landlord (Thelma Ritter). One day, after appearing in court to finalize her divorce, she meets a smooth-talking rugged cowboy in a bar - none other than Clark Gable. He and his associate, another misfit (Eli Wallach) both fall for her, naturally. After all, it's Marilyn. They let her stay at Wallach's country home for a retreat she longs for.

Gable and Monroe have alot of great scenes together. Right from the start, he puts on the charm. They spend several days together doing nothing but relaxing by a lake. Ahh! Then, the turning point in the relationship comes -- one day, Gable discovers a rabbit gnawing at his vegetable garden. He grabs his rifle and starts to chase it, to Monroe's horror. "I can't stand to see anything killed" she says. She also can't take rodeos, either, and suffers a nervous breakdown when she sees Gable's old friend (Montgomery Clift) thrown off a bull.

Later in the film, director John Huston shows us some magnificent scenes of the wide open canyon, wild horses running freely. But the men plan to capture and sell the horses in exchange for several hundred dollars. Still in love with Gable, Monroe decides to come along with the group during their round up.

Gable, Clift, and Wallach first chase a group of mares, then they go after the stallion. This sequence can be unpleasant to watch: we see how they all get lassoed, then their legs tied to a tire, anchoring them to the canyon floor where they are to stay through night until they're picked up by the dealer in the morning.

A baby colt is left behind, uncaptured, and we see him going up to his mother, all tied up.

All of this is upsetting to Monroe, who becomes even more horrified when she learns that the horses will eventually become butchered into dog food. As the men debate how much money they will make, Monroe can't take it anymore.

"You're all murderers!" she screams at them, and wants to see them all freed.

The last scene in this film is amazing.

The Clift character does what she wants: he cuts the ropes of the horse's legs. Once freed, the stallion unselfishly runs directly back to the mares tied up on the canyon floor. What an image! This horse displayed more human values and compassion than many people out there in the world today. (Mel Gibson could learn a thing or two from this horse) I saw the horses as representing the desire within us to live freely. And the misfits would be those things in our lives that seek to control us, tying us up.

Once Gable captures the stallion again, he takes out a pen knife and he cuts the horse loose. "Why did you do that?" asks a puzzled Wallach. Gable, giving up, says, "I didn't want anyone making up my mind for me."

Marilyn Monroe is the soul of this film. If there's one film she should have got an Oscar nomination for, it's this one. She is in every scene. There's a bit of John Huston in her character; you just have to watch the movie to see what I mean.

It saddens me to think this was her final film. What's even more bittersweet is that in the movie, one of the characters proposes a toast to her, and says, "Here's to your life...I hope it goes on forever".

---BEHIND THE SCENES---

In his autobiography, John Huston said she was late on the set almost every day. By that time she was taking pills to help her sleep and in the morning. When the doctor on the set refused to give her any more, she found drugs elsewhere. One day she broke down on the set and was hospitalized for two weeks shutting down production. Huston enjoyed working with Monty as well, but also recalled that he took pills during filming as well, unfortunately. And he wrote that Gable was a great actor to work with, and was very professional about his craft. He always had stories of the old days in the 1930s.

More about Clark Gable from Huston's memoir:

Because I edit as I go along, Clark got to see the first cut of the film, and he was delighted. The picture was way over budget. It would cost about $4,000,000 - and that was a lot of money in those days for a black and white film. Clark said, "Hell, John! If the studio is unhappy about the cost, I'll buy this picture for four million dollars. I think it's the the best thing I've ever done. Now all I want is to see that kid of mine born!" That was on November 4, and he was due to become a father in February. It wasn't meant to be. He suffered a heart attack on November 5 and died less than two weeks later.

Because of Clark's death and the tragedy of seeing Marilyn slowly destroying herself, my memories of The Misfits are mostly melancholy.

Read another post from Confessions of a Film Philistine

Another blog post from The Magnificent 60s

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This post is part of the 2010 John Huston Blogathon
hosted by Adam at Ice Box Movies

Dark Victory (1939)

First watched in 2006. Bette Davis plays a young socialite with a passion for living life to the fullest. (The trailer declares: "She's everything a woman can dare to be!")

Her main passion is horse riding, and there are some great stallion riding sequences. Some of her friends include Ronald Reagan, Humphrey Bogart, and her best friend Geraldine Fitzgerald, who encourages her to see a doctor after she experiences a series of headaches.

Her vision also begins to deteriorate gradually. Bette Davis's performance is great, and emotional. It's a demanding role.

She's supported by her friends and the brain specialist who treats her, played by George Brent, who becomes her lover, though Humphrey Bogart later reveals he's loved her for years. This is definitely Bette Davis at her best. Directed by Edmund Goulding.

This is a favorite movie of blogger KC of A Classic Movie Blog.