This movie is a remake of the John Wayne movie and they really out did the original production. I was amazed by the performance of Jeff Bridges that played a lawman who was getting old and sinking into the bottle of whiskey. The supporting cast was also outstanding in both believability and dramatization of the particular characters. The young woman that played the fourteen year old Mattie Ross, Hailee Steinfeld, who was out to avenge her fathers murder committed by Tom Chaney, portrayed by Josh Brolin, a Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, was skillfully portrayed by Matt Damon. The main cast of characters looked and acted as if they were in the proper time frame for the story. The balance of the cast of the movie looked and gave the spirit of the times as they carried out the roles they were intended to portray.

The town of Fort Smith Arkansas was a bustling gateway to the frontier. Judge Parker and his court were important to the town but it did not totally drive the town because business and their commerce appeared to be the force of this frontier metropolis. The events of hangings brought people to town and justice appeared to be swift and hard. Rooster Cogburn was a US Marshal charged with the pursuit and capture of outlaws and had soul jurisdiction in the Indian Territory that was just across the river from Arkansas.

If you have not seen the John Wayne version of True Grit let me take the time to set the story for you. Tom Chaney murders the father of Mattie Ross and he then flees to the Indian Territory to escape the law. Mattie arrives at Ft. Smith to collect her father’s body and try and motivate the law to pursue Chaney and bring him back to Ft Smith to hang. With the jurisdiction in the Indian Territory only available to US Marshals Mattie seeks out a man who will get the job done and she proceeds to secure the money for a reward by out bargaining a horse trader that her father dealt with prior to being killed. Securing the money she uses some of the money as a reward for the capture of the murder and gets the commitment from Rooster Cogburn to chase and capture Tom Chaney. Mattie, Rooster and LaBoeuf are traveling together to chase down the outlaw. There is continued dissention on the trail between the three and they parted company with Mattie and Rooster continued on their quest of Chaney. They arrived at a cabin and captured two outlaws that were helping Lucky Ned Pepper a notorious outlaw and his gang. A set trap is sprung early when LaBoeuf arrives closely followed by Lucky Ned Pepper. Ned escapes and LaBoeuf survives the altercation. The trail of Ned goes cold and the law of Rooster Cogburn is ready to turn away from the chase. By chance Mattie comes across the remains of the outlaws gang and shoots Chaney in the side and miss’s completing the job when her weapon miss fires. She is captured and used as a hostage for the major four outlaws get away. She is held by her archenemy Tom Chaney as the rest of the gang escapes. Chaney feels that if he silences Mattie he would be off the hook. LaBoeuf shows up in the nick of time and stops Chaney’s plan cold. From this point on the new version varies from the John Wayne classic and appears more closely to the book version of the story.

I highly recommend this Western Movie to all the real western fans. This movie is on my top 100 Western Movies and it is in the top ten. The Coen brothers used their skill and unique insight to remake a great western movie into an all time iconic, realistic western classic movie. For me this is a five star western movie.

Mrs. Lowe tries to conceal the fact that her husband has left and not likely to return. Hondo moves on but is deeply attracted to Mrs. Lowe, played by Geraldine Page. He accidentally meets her husband and they instantly rub each other the wrong way. Mr. Lowe follows Hondo from the fort as he is going to take some supplies and try and convince Angie to come back to the fort. Hondo is about to get ambushed by Apaches and Mr. Lowe and his side kick run into the middle of it.  When everything is done and Hondo had saved his life he still tries to kill Hondo but ends up on the short end of a bullet.

The chase begins and Hondo is trapped and over powered. He is waiting his end with defiant courage when the tintype of Angie’s boy is revealed. Hondo doesn’t know that Vittorio has taken him as a son and a strong father is needed to help raise the boy. After a knife fight for honor he is taken to the Lowe’s ranch and dumped in front of Angie and she is ask if this is her man and she slowly but definitely answers yes.

This is a very good western and I would recommend all western fans to revisit this movie and soak up the western essence of John Wayne. The support of Ward Bond as Buffalo Baker is just one of the appearances he is renowned for in Wayne’s movies.

This movie opened up with the tough western man who was challenged to die or survive by his old one-time friends when water separated them. Their was water only for two and his partners teamed up against him and left him with nothing in the middle of the desert expecting him to die. In 1908 the west was beginning to change but Cable Hogue, played by Jason Robards, was yet to embrace the changes. In desperate need of water Cable was stumbling along in the sand of the desert in need of water but none was in sight. A muddy boot toe startled him and water was found. He was in the middle of the desert on a stage line and he found water.

Starting a business of selling water he also began his own graveyard when one customer refused to pay. Still unable to change and accept the modern ways he chose to sit and wait for his two ex partners to show up again for a drink of water and he could extract his revenge. Many things happened but the best event seemed to be the introduction of Hildy, played by Stella Stevens. She was an eyeful that attracted Cable into a love story and songs rolled out of this combination.

The director Sam Peckinpah changed his view of the western frontier from violence to one of whimsy odd happenings. I enjoyed this movie but it seemed a little far-fetched and not totally believable in the west that I recognize. I still would recommend this movie a western example of tongue in cheek humor.

This is a movie directed by John Ford about a western ledgend that has some fact laced with myth. The first scene is a cattle drive and it pictures the initial characters getting ready to stop for the night and a lone buggy drive by Walter Brennan playing old man Clanton comes close and the character played by Henry Fonda goes out to visit and the buggy. Old man Clanton wants to buy the cattle but he wouldn’t sell them. You learn that they are close to Tombstone, Arizona and the cattle drivers are heading for California. The three oldest brothers head for town leaving the youngest to clean up and watch the cattle.

Things begin to happen and in town you learn that Henry Fonda is playing Wyatt Earp. On their return to their camp they find that the cattle were rustled and the youngest brother James was shot dead. This puts the Earp clan and the Clanton family on a trail of a blood feud. The Earp’s particularly Wyatt befriends Doc Holiday played by Victor Mature.  Victor Mature was to physically robust to convey a consumptive Doc Holiday.  The movie has a real flavor of the west in the way that it was in the late 1800’s.

The story has all the fury of a storm as the families collide at the shoot out at the OK Corral. This is legend and the good guys win out and the bad guys die. While all of this is happening Wyatt falls in love with the new schoolteacher Clementine Carter an eastern love of Doc Holiday. The movie I viewed was the original version save for history and I saw excerpts of the released version. Not a lot of difference but very interesting. I recommend that you western movie buffs see the original. I have this movie on my top 100 best westerns, how about your list.

This is a post Civil War movie that highlights two men and the hatred that is enacted by the actions of war that grow from the obsession of righting a wrong into the breeding ground for revenge. An ex-Confederate Colonel Carver played by, Liam Neeson, is chasing an ex-Union Captain Gideon played by, Pierce Brosnan, in the hope of clearing his mind of the torment generated by the loss of his complete family at the hand and order of Gideon. Neither man is aware of the torment that is haunting the other about that particular day. Many things are done in war that drive men long after the war is over and this is the case with these two men.

The chase has continued for five years and Carver feels the closeness of the end but he wants to look into the eyes of the man that inflicted this terrible calamity on his life. The opening scene is on top of a mountain and Gideon is shot and would probably die but he is chased, so his survival instinct clicks on and the hunt begins with Carver and his posse of four bounty hunters are on the heals of the wounded Gideon.

The landscape is a major character in the beginning all the way to the end. Water, cold and snow is finally at the end of the chase is replaced by desert, heat and no water. The abundance of water can kill you and the lack of water will also kill you. The location is New Mexico one of the few places in the United States that you can get all of these combinations. The two characters in the beginning look similar in appearance from there use of clothing and in the end they look similar in appearance again with there lack of clothing.

This is an anti war movie that highlights mans inhumanity to man. The question is why can’t they let it go. The ravages of war on both men are struck on the chest of each man. The movie was very well done but it did not play well on the big screen and I missed it there. It is a very good western and I will have to decide if it will replace a movie I already have in my top one hundred best western movies.

The movie is a Zane Grey story formerly “Born to the West”, staring John Wayne. This movie had a confusing beginning for me. Heading for Wyoming Dare, played by John Wayne, and his side kick, Dink, are involved in a cattle rustling.   They pick the wrong side which is the rustlers side and they are barely able to get free.  They find out that the cattle that were being rustled belong to his cousin who is also the banker of the town and President of the Cattleman’s Association. Being the big man in town Tom Fillmore also has the best-looking girlfriend, Judith, and Dare are immediately enamored by her beauty.

Dare takes a job with his cousin Tom and begins his career as a cattleman. He starts at the bottom as a trail drive cook. He takes the job seriously but he is traveling every night into town to see Judith.  He is undercutting his cousin’s position with the girl which is taken very graciously by Tom. Dare is given the job as a trail foreman for his cousin’s cattle. The previous foreman turns out to be a cohort of the bad man in town Bart Hammond who wants Tom’s cattle in the worst way and tries to steal them. When he can’t do it one way he talks Dare into a card game and a crooked card sharp almost cleans out the money for the cattle.

Tom arrives to save the day and wins back the money. Getting shot in the process Tom is saved by Dare and the arrival of the trail crew save the day.   The story is a true western and it represents the ups and downs of the life that was always a continual trial. I recommend this movie to all western lovers.

The movie was just a vehicle to complete a number of picture deals for Alan Ladd. This did not influence my look at the movie and I am glad that I did because it was a good western. The story begins after the Civil War and when John Chandler returns home to Atlanta his wife is dead and his son and dog are missing and when his search concluded he was found in Pennsylvania. The boy is mute in an orphanage with their dog. David is played by David Ladd and he did an excellent job. John begins to search the countryside for doctors who might be able to solve his son speech problem. He gets in trouble with Union law fighting sheepherders who try and steal the boys dog.  He is going to jail but instead is placed in servitude. Linnet Moore keeps David out of harms way as Harry Burleigh the large sheepherder played by Dean Jagger and his two sons beat Chandler down and out. Getting thirty days or thirty dollars he is headed for jail but Linnet Moore, played by Olivia de Havilland, says she will pay the fine and John can work out at her farm.

The story continues and attachments grow and John finds out that the doctor’s friend in Minnesota has had success in similar cases and it would only cost three hundred dollars for the trip and surgery. The only way to get the money is to sell the boys dog that appeared to be a prize sheep-herding dog, which he had exhibited several times. So as a last resort he sells the dog.

When the boy comes back not being cured and still mute he is devastated about the dog and takes it out on his father who feels terrible and goes to get the dog back but it is now owned by The Burleigh Clan.  They want to get even and then some for being thwarted in there efforts to take over the Moore Farm by simply stealing the range. The story continues and a gunfight is the beginning of the new life for John, David and Linnet.

This was a good story with right prevailing over wrong in the typical western way. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to any western buff.

This is an old classic western featuring John Wayne and James Stewart. The story begins at the small town of Shinbone and U.S. Senator played by James Stewart and his wife arrive in town to attend a funeral of a man who is going to be buried by the county because he is so poor and destitute played by John Wayne. The ex sheriff Link Appleyard played by Andy Devine and a young newspaper reporter who is after a career story meets the senator and his wife at the train. The movie is about the story that made the Senator, Ransom Stoddard, the man he is in the present.

Let me set the characters Ransom Stoddard is a young Eastern lawyer who follows the call the time Go West Young Man. He was strong willed and did not think that violence was any way to settle any disagreement. Liberty Valance, played by Lee Marvin, confronted him a great selection for a bad man. A hold-up of the stage where he verbally confronts Liberty with out a gun trying to protect a woman riding the stage. He is severely beaten, robbed and left to die while the stage was sent on into town. He is saved by Tom Doniphon and brought to town where he meets Hallie, played by Vera Miles, and the love triangle begins. This turns out to be more than a simple western in that Rance does not fold into the evil strength of Liberty and the interest that he represents the free grassers and large cattle interest.

The story continues to move into the confrontation between Stoddard and Valance with Doniphon  standing in the shadows waiting for what he knows is going to happen. The story is told by the Senator with the tangles of the story moving in a way that the truth is the only way through the complexity of every thing that happens.

This is an excellent story and the movie was great and I recommend it to all western readers. The line from the movie that is the key to it all is “When the legend becomes fact print the legend”. The newspaper headline read “The man who Shot Liberty Valance, came to Shinbone to attend the funeral of his friend Tom Donnavan”. If you have seen it is time to see it again.

This movie is about two old friends one still an active gunfighter and the other a sheriff in El Dorado. They have competed in many things and still remained friendly. The gunfighter Cole Thornton, is played by John Wayne and the sheriff J.P. Harrah, is played by Robert Mitchum. The story develops in the town where the Cole has come to town to go to work for a land grabber Bart Jason, played by Ed Asner. After talking to the sheriff he goes out to Jason’s ranch and turns down the job. As he heads back to town he is shot at and gut shoots Luke MacDonald the boy has been told how hopeless survival is from this kind of wound that he shoots himself. Cole takes the body to the MacDonald ranch. After he leaves, he is shot by Josephine MacDonald as she tries to even the score for her brothers death. The bullet can’t be removes and Cole leaves town after his recovery. Months pass and he saves a young mans life and hears about a job from another gunfighter who wants to hire him. The job is the same one he turned down but now the sheriff is a drunk because of women problems.

The story continues with many ups and downs. The two friends strengthen their relationship and do the right thing in there own minds. The story climax’s in a shot out where two cripples a green young man and an old Indian fighter defeat the bad guys. The two friends continue their long friendship.

This was a very good John Wayne western and a must see.  This movie is on my top 100 best western movies list check my page.

The final Disc on this Ken Burns Series is just as moving as the other four. The end of the War is approaching and the Confederacy is dieing a slow agonizing death. Lee is in control of all of the Confederate Army but he was out numbered by the volume of troops that were presented by the Union Army. Sherman was marching to the sea and Sheridan was destroying every thing that could be used by the Confederate troop in the Shenandoah Valley. Grant was chasing or pushing Lee into an ever tightening vice.

The question that hit me was how could the war keep going on? Lee’s Lines around Petersburg were breached in three places and the union troops poured through in there quest to raze Richmond. On Sherman’s march to the sea his troops destroyed over 100 million dollars worth of Southern stores and supplies. The army lead by Sherman blew a breath of life into emancipation by freeing over 25,000 slaves. Sherman’s army continued their destruction and became more efficient and harsh in their swing into South Carolina.

The losses on the field as well as the destruction of everything in front and along side the Union army’s caused famine and drove the population and Confederate troops to despair. The Theory of the Confederacy was being destroyed and trampled under foot by the surging Union troops. The Union would survive at a cost but they felt justified with their actions.

Lee and his troops fled west with Grant at his back making him fight every day. The Confederate Army on the field was down to 25,000 men with death, desertion, and sickness aiding in its demise. Grant had over 125,000 men closing in as Lee approached Appomatics Station. The war was coming to a swift close. April 7th at 10:30 AM , 1865 Lee surrendered to Grant at Appamatics Court House and the war was over except for a few small fights that wound down  in Texas.

Many survivors of the war had already returned home and were looking toward there future. Boys that went to war and survived came home old men. The South was battered and starved, everyone was blaming some one else for the defeat of the Confederacy. Over one/fourth of the white men of age to fight in the South had died.  Over three and a half million young men went to war and over 620,000 died.

Seven days after the war was over an assassin killed Lincoln at Ford’s Theater in Washington DC. This was four years to the day that Fort Sumter fell and the war began. John Wilks Booth could not accept the loss of the war and was obsessed with killing Lincoln. He shot him in the back of the head ending his life and in the same act sentencing the South to a troubled and hard times rejoining the Union. Many wanted retribution and the feeling were bitter on both sides. This was our first President to be assinated.

The year 1865 has many unusual but predictable events. The 13th Ammendment is passed abolishing Slavery. The Klu Klux Klan is formed. Samuel Clements wrote his first story under the pin name of Mark Twain. The Civil War solidified us as a Nation.