WINDING STAIR by Douglas C. Jones

"Jones has taken believable crimes of a real gang of desperadoes from the 1890s, has surrounded the real criminals with fictitious lawmen, and given them a fictitious trial before the real 'hanging judge,' Isaac Parker....None of the moral forces of The Ox-Bow Incident perhaps -- but a gritty, lovingly etched Western-crime re-creation." -- Kirkus Review

Winding Stair takes place in Fort Smith, Arkansas and the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) during the 1890s when the U.S. Federal Court for Western Arkansas, with Judge Isaac "The Hanging Judge" Parker at the helm, also had federal jurisdiction over much of the Indian Territory.

Federal courthouse in Fort Smith as it appeared in 1890 and today

Reconstructed gallows at Fort Smith

Young Eben Pay is reading for the law in the U.S. Attorney's office in Fort Smith when a gang of five murderous thieves, rapists, and killers (loosely based on the Rufus Buck gang) go on a killing and raping rampage in the Territory.  Deputy Marshal Oscar Schiller invites Pay to go along in an effort to capture the gang.

As events unfold Pay becomes much more personally involved than he had planned.

The reader is also introduced to Marshal Schiller's Osage tracker, Joe Mountain. The marshal, Joe, and Eben made subsequent appearances in other Jones' novels.

******

"Jones relies on none of the usual Western trappings; he eschews stereotypes....The historical research is seamless -- the story never slows down to admit dull exposition.  Winding Stair convinces, utterly, that this is how life must have been in that place at that time...a significant and highly entertaining contribution to the popular literature of the American West." -- New York Times

SEASON OF YELLOW LEAF (1983) and GONE THE DREAMS AND DANCING (1984) by Douglas C. Jones

These novels are companion pieces that are fictional accounts of Cynthia Ann Parker's captivity by Comanches on the Texas frontier. She underwent a cruel initiation and acculturation process but was eventually accepted as a member of the tribe.  She gave birth to a son, Quanah, who grew up to become a warrior respected by his tribe and feared by his enemies.

In Jones' stories Cynthia Ann's Anglo name is changed to Morfydd Parry, which the Comanches change to Chosen, and Quanah becomes Kwahadi (Antelope).

Season of Yellow Leaf begins in 1838 with the kidnapping of ten-year old Morfydd and ends in 1854 with her "re-capture" and return to a white world that she no longer understands and does not want to live in. By the 1850's, the Comanche were facing a bleak future as they fought to oppose Western expansion by whites and encroachment on their land by re-located tribes.

The Comancheria: the land of the Comanches until about 1850

The capture of Cynthia Ann was also the inspiration for Alan LeMay's novel, The Searchers (1954), which was adapted for the screen under the same title.  Many Western aficionados rank it as the greatest western ever filmed.  It was directed by John Ford and starred John Wayne and the spectacular Monument Valley vistas.

Palo Duro (Spanish for 'hard stick') Canyon located a few miles south of modern-day Amarillo, Texas is the second largest canyon in the U.S.  It served as a winter refuge by the Comanches.  The canyon teemed with game, including buffalo, until wiped out by hide hunters.

Gone the Dreams and Dancing takes place after 1870 and is narrated by Liverpool Morgan, the Black Welshman we first met in The Barefoot Brigade (1982).  He is now serving as a civilian interpreter for the military at Fort Sill in the Indian Territory.

In 1875, Morgan first sets eyes on Kwahadi, the last war chief of his Comanche band, defeated but proud, leading his people to the Reservation. Eventually, Morgan becomes Kwahadi's friend and attempts to help the chief with the difficult task of helping his people adapt to a new way of life.

The Western Writers of America awarded Gone the Dreams and Dancing a Spur Award for Best Historical Novel.


"In these works, Jones displays the sensitivity and artistry for which he has become renowned.  His appreciation for the culture and tradition of the Comanches is apparent, and he does not diminish his subjects by romanticizing them.  His balanced treatment of whites reflects that they too are caught in processes of change that they cannot control.  Jones' characters are complex and memorable. His descriptions of western landscape reflects his artist's eye for color and form, and his careful research recreates settings that disappeared long ago.  His novels are important contributions to Western literature." -- Cheryl J. Foote, Twentieth-Century Western Writers

Cynthia Ann Parker and infant daughter soon after her "re-capture"

Quanah Parker

THE COURT-MARTIAL OF GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER (1976) by Douglas C. Jones

DOUGLAS C. JONES (1924-1998).

I find it difficult to understand why some western novelists are so fortunate to have many of their books and stories make their way to movie and TV screens, while other writers often just as talented, or maybe even more so, rarely, if ever, see their work adapted to film.

There is no doubt that timing is a factor. Writers such as Zane Grey, Ernest Haycox, and Luke Short, for example, were turning out novels at a time when western movies were extremely popular and were annually produced by the hundreds.  In the case of Grey all of his western novels were filmed, most of them more than once, though in some cases only the title of the story survived the screenplay.

On the other hand, the stories of a few other writers -- Louis L'Amour and Larry McMurty come to mind -- have made their way to the screen even at a time that fewer and fewer westerns were being filmed.  True, most of the L'Amour stories were filmed as made-for-TV movies, but they were filmed.

Then there is the late Elmer Kelton, who was a prolific writer of popular western novels, some of which were acclaimed by critics and won prestigious awards. And yet only one of them, The Good Old Boys, was ever filmed, and that as a TV movie with Tommy Lee Jones as producer and star.

And that brings us to Douglas C. Jones.  

First of all, it would be a misnomer to call him a "western novelist."  While it is true that most of his novels were set in the West, they were far from the formulaic stories produced by the likes of L'Amour, Haycox, Short, and company, or even Kelton. While Kelton did write a few novels that approached literary status, most of them would have to be classified as formulaic, which is not to say that they weren't well-written and enjoyable. Jones' novels, on the other hand, were anything but formulaic. They weren't really "western novels" as we think of the term, but were in reality historical novels that happened to be set in the West.

But like Kelton, only one of Jones' stories has been adapted to film and is likewise a TV movie. Jones' very first novel, The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer, was produced as a Hallmark TV movie in 1977, and is thus far the first and last Jones story to be filmed.  

He was born in 1924 in the small northwestern Arkansas town of Winslow, located about half-way between the larger towns of Fort Smith and Fayetteville. After graduating from high school in Fayetteville in 1942, he was drafted into the army and served in the Pacific Theater.

After his discharge, he attended the University of Arkansas, graduating with a degree in journalism in 1949.  He then returned to the army where he served another twenty years.  But during that time he attended the University of Wisconsin where he was awarded a master's degree in mass communications.

Having grown up in northwestern Arkansas just across the Arkansas River from the former Indian Territory, it is only natural that Jones developed a deep and abiding interest in the history of the Indian frontier.  That interest led him to deal with the conflict between Indians and whites in his first book, a work of nonfiction, as well as his first three novels which followed.  And it was a subject that he would also return to in his later work.

While still in the military, his first book, The Treaty of Medicine Lodge, was published in 1966.  His only nonfiction book, it was a re-working of his master's thesis.  That might seem a strange thesis for a degree in mass communications until you read the book's subtitle: The Story of the Great Treaty Council as Told by Eyewitnesses.  The eyewitnesses were the newspaper correspondents such as Henry Stanley who were sent to cover the proceedings.

The above marker which sets in the town of Medicine Lodge, Kansas is somewhat of an over simplification of the treaty's impact, but it is correct in stating that it did not bring immediate peace.  There were several causes, but the chief one was the fact that Congress failed to follow through with its side of the agreement.

Retiring as a Lt. Colonel in 1968, he taught journalism for six years at Wisconsin, eventually devoting full-time to his writing. Fifty-two years old when his first novel was published, he would write sixteen more, with the last being published posthumously. His historical novels range all the way from the American Revolution to the Great Depression.  There is also an eighteenth novel, set in World War II, that has as of yet not been published.  It would seem a natural fit for a career soldier who served in that conflict, but with the passing of almost two decades since his death, it doesn't seem likely that it will ever see the light of day.


THE BOOK.

According to Jones, the premise of his first novel was born as a result of a discussion with a friend about what Custer's fate might have been had he survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  

It was Jones' opinion that Custer would have faced court-martial charges related to his leadership and conduct during the battle.

In the alternate history that resulted (the only foray that Jones made into that genre), charges are brought against Custer and witnesses are called to testify for and against him.  The witnesses present conflicting views of the man and confusing testimony about the events surrounding the battle that in many ways reflect the confusion that still surrounds the man and his actions to this day.  It is through the testimony of the eyewitnesses that the battle is recreated.

View from "Last Stand Hill" with Little Bighorn valley in the distance marked by trees along the bank of the river.  It was in the valley that the large villages of the Lakota (Sioux) and Northern Cheyenne were hidden.

The verdict?  I'm not at liberty to say on the grounds that I would be guilty of spoiling a good story.  But I do recommend it to anyone who is interested in the intriguing possibilities that the book offers.  I should also mention that it won the Western Writers of America's spur award for Best Western Novel.


"This is a fantasy which needs no apology, for who among us has not been intrigued by the alternatives history never reveals." -- Douglas C. Jones, writing in the preface of The Court-Martial of George Armstrong Custer


Enhancing the pleasure of reading the book are the pencil and charcoal sketches of the principal characters that are included in my first edition copy. The artist is the author.  I forgot to mention that he was also a talented artist. And as a painter, he was able to describe and bring to life landscapes in a vivid fashion in his novels.  His sketches also appear in the first editions of several of his other books.

One critic wrote that Jones' abilities as a writer, journalist, historian, and painter represented "a happy amalgamation of talents."  And so they did.  Oh, I also forgot to mention that he played the upright bass in a jazz band.  I guess that was in his spare time.

******
"Countless movies and books have ... featured Custer.  Sometimes Custer is a hero; recently, more often, he's a villain, but never boring .... Both admirers and critics of Custer will find something in the book to support their points of view. -- William F.B. Vearey, The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable 


"This superb novel answers the question that everyone has asked: What would have happened to Custer had he lived?  Read it." -- Jessamyn West


The Film (Warner Bros. TV, 1977)  (NBC-TV).
DIRECTOR: Glenn Jordan; PRODUCER: Norman Rosemont; WRITERS: teleplay by John Gay based on novel by Douglas C. Jones; CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jim Kilgore

CAST: Brian Keith, James Olson, Blythe Danner, Ken Howard, Stephen Elliott, Dehl Berti, James Blendick, J.D. Cannon, Nicolas Coster, William Daniels, Richard Dysart, Anthony Zerbe

THE DOOLIN-DALTON GANG, Part I

They were duelin', Doolin-Dalton

High or low, it was the same

Easy money and faithless women

Red-eye whiskey for the pain

Go down, Bill Dalton, it must be God's will

Two brothers lyin' dead in Coffeyville

Two voices call to you from where they stood

Lay down your law books now, they're no damn good

Better keep on movin' Doolin-Dalton

'Til your shadow sets you free

And if you're fast and if you're lucky

You will never see that hangin' tree

Well, the towns lay out across the dusty plains

Like graveyards filled with tombstones waitin' for the names

And a man could use his back or use his brains

But some just went stir crazy, Lord, 'cause nothin' ever changed

-- THE EAGLES

Songwriters
BROWNE, JACKSON / SOUTHER, J.D. / HENLEY, DON / FREY, GLENN

COFFEYVILLE.
On October 5, 1892 five men rode into Coffeyville, Kansas, a town located in the southeastern corner of the state.  Three of the men were brothers: Bob, Grat, and Emmett Dalton.  Coffeyville was their hometown.  Riding with them were Bill Powers and Dick Broadwell. They had come to do something that not even the James-Younger Gang had ever attempted to do.  They planned to rob two banks simultaneously.

When the smoke cleared and the dust settled that day four townsmen and four outlaws were dead.  Among the outlaws only Emmett, wounded more than twenty times, was still alive, but just barely.

Rumors persisted that there had been a sixth rider and that he had escaped. The rumors were based on testimony by a farm couple who said they saw six men riding into town just before the hold-up and statements by another person claiming that he saw a rider making a successful getaway during the shoot-out between the outlaws and the townspeople.

Emmett, who did survive, and who was tried and convicted and sent to prison, always maintained that there was no sixth rider.  But the rumor wouldn't go away.  Although nobody came forward to identify who that legendary rider might have been, subsequent events led many to believe that it was Bill Doolin. One theory was that he had been charged with the responsibility of holding the horses and that when all hell broke loose he didn't hang around but made tracks out of town.  Another had it that his horse came up lame before the men reached town and that he went off in search of another horse and missed the whole shebang.

Neither of those scenarios hold up under close scrutiny and it is more than likely that the mythical sixth rider is just that -- a myth.  But Bill Doolin was real.  He may not have been at Coffeyville, but he had been a member of the Dalton Gang.  And after the citizens of that community decimated that gang, Doolin didn't waste any time in organizing a new gang. He was assisted in this effort by Bill Dalton, another of the infamous brothers, and the result is what came to be known as the Doolin-Dalton Gang.

Bill Doolin

Bill Dalton

BILL DALTON (1866-1894).
Bill Dalton was not living in Kansas when his three brothers were riding the outlaw trail in that state and in the Oklahoma Territory to the south.  He had moved to California where he was married and was living a respectable life as a farmer, one who was also studying law.  He had even been elected to the California state legislature on the Populist Party ticket. Of course being a member of the legislature did not in and of itself make one respectable.

The Populist Party was an agrarian movement that blamed big business for the hard times that farmers, ranchers, and small businesses were experiencing in the years before the turn of the century.  And it was the railroads that were identified as being the primary culprits. Bill Dalton hated them with a passion.

But did he hate them enough to rob one?  Well, perhaps.  He had been joined in California by brother Grat who had left his stomping grounds to the east in order to put some distance between him and the U.S. marshals who were keeping a close watch on him.  He may have been accompanied by brothers Bob and Emmett, or they may have joined him later, but it isn't clear that that was the case.

A fireman was killed during a train hold-up in February, 1891, and Bill and Grat were arrested.  There is suspicion that Bob and Emmett were involved as well, but it was never proved for they were never caught.  Bill was tried and acquitted, but Grat was convicted. However, on the way to prison Grat escaped and eventually made his way back home to rejoin Bob and Emmett and other members of the gang in holding up banks and railroads, primarily in the Oklahoma and Indian territories. 

After the death of his two brothers and the capture of another in the Coffeyville fiasco in October, 1892, Bill Dalton came home and met Bill Doolin. 

In 1890, Congress passed the Oklahoma Organic Act which partitioned the Indian Territory by creating a separate territory to be called Oklahoma.  The new territory essentially encompassed everything in the former Indian Territory except the lands belonging to the so-called Five Civilized Tribes: the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole.  The intent was to eventually combine the two territories into a single state.  In 1907, the state of Oklahoma was admitted into the Union and the Indian Territory ceased to exist.

BILL DOOLIN (1858-1896).
Bill Doolin was born in Johnson County in western Arkansas.  In 1881, he became a cowboy in the Indian Territory where he worked with other men, who, like him, eventually found themselves riding the outlaw trail.  They included the likes of George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb, Charley Pierce, Bill Powers, Dick Broadwell, Bill "Tulsa Jack" Blake, Dan "Dynamite Dick" Clifton, and Emmett Dalton.

Doolin's first reported run in with the law occurred in Coffeyville, Kansas when an attempt was made by the local authorities to arrest him and his friends for public drunkenness.  Elsewhere such behavior might have been overlooked, but Coffeyville just happened to be located in a dry county.

In the melee that followed two lawmen were wounded while trying to confiscate Doolin and his friends' liquor.

Soon thereafter Doolin joined up with the Daltons.  He was probably too smart to participate in their hare brained scheme to rob the two banks in Coffeyville, despite the rumors that in fact he had been a sixth rider but had successfully vamoosed to fight and rob another day.


THE DOOLIN-DALTON GANG.
After the failed Coffeyville raid and the death of four of the outlaws and the capture of the seriously wounded Emmett Dalton, Bill Doolin began recruiting his own gang, and because one of its members was Bill Dalton, it is commonly known as the Doolin-Dalton Gang, but also as The Wild Bunch (not to be confused with the Butch Cassidy-Sundance Kid Wild Bunch) or the Oklahombres. Comprising the nucleus of the gang were men who, like Doolin, had been members of the Dalton Gang and had not participated in the Coffeyville raid.

In a three year spree, the gang robbed banks and trains in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and the Indian Territory.  After holding up the bank in Spearville, Kansas on November 1, 1892, the gang took refuge near Orlando in Oklahoma Territory at the home of the sister of gang member Ol Yantis.  Later that month a sheriff's posse tracked Yantis to that location and in a shoot-out they killed Yantis, making him the first gang member to be killed.  There would be other gang members -- many others -- that would suffer the same fate.  Of the eleven outlaws who rode with the gang at various times, only two lived into the 20th century, but only because they had been captured and were in prison when the new century began.

In March 1893, despite the fact that several bank and train robberies followed Spearville, Bill Doolin married Edith Ellsworth in Kingfisher, OT.  They would have one son. Not long after his marriage, Doolin was seriously wounded in the foot during a train robbery near Cimarron, Kansas.


THE BATTLE OF INGALLS.
What came to be called the Battle of Ingalls occurred on September 1, 1893. Today practically a ghost town, Ingalls in the 1890's was a wide-open town and a safe haven for fugitives on the run.  It was one of the places that the Doolin-Dalton gang felt secure.

But the territory's newly appointed U.S. marshal, 32-year old E.D. Nix, had different plans for the gang holed up in Ingalls.  Nix sent fourteen deputy marshals to Ingalls in an attempt to clean out the Doolin-Dalton gang.  

U.S. marshal E.D. Nix

In the ensuing gun battle three deputies were killed along with two citizens.  Three outlaws -- Bitter Creek Newcomb, Charlie Pierce, and Dynamite Dick Clifton -- were wounded, but managed to escape.  

Arkansas Tom Jones was captured after being stunned by dynamite that was thrown into the hotel where he had taken cover.  As it turned out, Jones (real name Roy Daugherty) outlived all the other members of the gang.  He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to fifty years in prison. However, he was pardoned in 1910 after serving fewer than twenty years.

Arkansas Tom

In 1917, he was tried and convicted for robbing a bank in Neosho, Missouri.  After being released in 1921, he robbed a bank in Asbury, Missouri that same year.  Tracked to Joplin, Missouri he was killed in 1924 in a gunfight with lawmen.  He outlived all the other gang members, but his life still ended much like the rest of them.


THE THREE GUARDSMEN.
In the wake of the Ingalls shoot-out, Marshal Nix organized an elite group of one hundred deputies whose primary job was to, one way or the other, wipe out the Doolin-Dalton Gang.  The most famous of the deputies were Heck Thomas, Chris Madsen, and Bill Tilghman, who were so successful in the pursuit of the gang that they came to be called "The Three Guardsmen."  

Nix gave the following directions to his deputies: "I have selected you to do this work, placing explicit confidence in your abilities to cope with those desperadoes and bring them in -- live if possible -- dead if necessary."

Heck Thomas (1900)

Bill Tilghman (1912)

Chris Madsen (date unknown)

It was the beginning of the end for the gang.

• In June 1894, Bill Dalton was killed by a posse at his home near Ardmore, OT.

• In April 1895, Tulsa Jack Blake was killed by U.S. marshals near Ames, OT.

• In May 1895, Bitter Creek Newcomb and Charley Pierce were killed near Pawnee, OT by bounty hunters.  

• In September 1895, Little Bill Raidler was captured by Bill Tilghman.  He was sentenced to prison and was paroled in 1903 because of ill health due to severity of the wounds he had received at the time of his capture.  He died the following year.  Like Arkansas Tom before him, he had lived into the new century -- and for the same reason.

• In March 1896, Red Buck Waightman was killed near Arapaho, OT by a posse led by Chris Madsen.

But what of Bill Doolin -- the gang's leader?  What was he doing while his men were being picked off one by one?  Well, as one would imagine, he was hunkering down.

He and Little Dick West hid out in the New Mexico territory during the summer of 1895.  Later that year, he and his wife traveled to Eureka Springs, Arkansas so that he could use the baths to ease the rheumatism in his foot caused by the bullet wound that he had sustained two years earlier.  Early the following year, he was captured in one of the bathhouses by deputy U.S. marshal Bill Tilghman.

Doolin was arraigned in Stillwater, OT on murder charges stemming from the gunfight at Ingalls in 1893.  He pleaded not guilty.  He was locked up in the Guthrie jail to await trial.  He and Dynamite Dick Clifton and twelve other prisoners were able to break out of the jail.

After his escape, Doolin was hiding out near Lawson, OT., where his wife and small son were staying with her mother.  On August 24, 1896 he was waylaid outside the home by a posse led by deputy U.S. marshal Heck Thomas.  When he refused to obey a command to surrender and began firing at the lawmen he was killed by a shotgun blast fired by Thomas.

As per usual, Doolin's body was placed on display in Guthrie and photographs were taken.  He was buried in the Boot Hill section of Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie.  His widow filed an unlawful death damage suit against the marshals, but it was dismissed.

Bill Doolin

• In November 1897, Dynamite Dick Clifton was tracked down near Checotah, IT and killed by a posse led by deputy marshal Chris Madsen.

• In April 1898, Little Dick West, the gang's last remaining fugitive at large, was tracked down in Logan County, OT by a posse led by deputy U.S. marshal Chris Madsen and was killed in a shoot-out.  He is buried in Guthrie near Bill Doolin.

      

THE BRANCH AND THE SCAFFOLD: A Novel of Judge Parker by Loren D. Estleman

I stumbled onto Loren D. Estleman years ago when I checked out This Old Bill from my local library. I had never heard of the author but since the book was a fictional treatment of Buffalo Bill, I couldn't resist it. I followed up that one by quickly reading two more of his historical westerns: Aces & Eights (Wild Bill Hickok) and Bloody Season (the Earps). By then Estleman had become one of my favorite authors of western fiction.

He is not only a prolific writer, but also a somewhat unusual one, in that he specializes in two genres: westerns (especially historical westerns about real people) and crime novels. Since the appearance of his first novel in 1976, he has now written 40 crime novels, 24 westerns, two works of non-fiction, and three short story collections (one western and two crime). If you are keeping score that is 69 books in 34 years!

In The Branch and the Scaffold Estleman covers the same ground as the late Douglas C. Jones, who also specialized in historical westerns (also a favorite writer). It is the story of Judge Isaac Parker, the so-called "hanging judge," who battled to bring law and order to the Western Arkansas District and the Indian Nations (later Oklahoma Territory). It is an episodic novel that does not include a single fictional character. The characters, even the minor ones, were real people. That was not the case in his other historical westerns. In those stories, he created fictional characters in order to enliven the historical events.

Judge Isaac Parker

The Branch and the Scaffold is not my favorite Estleman novel. That may be because I have read much about the people and the events that are covered and since Estleman does nothing to embellish the story -- it reads almost like a work of history rather than a work of fiction -- and I am already familiar with that history.

But to those who do not know much about the life and times of Judge Parker and the lawmen who rode for him or the famous and infamous outlaws they brought to justice, the novel will be both entertaining and informative.

 


Loren D. Estleman

TRUE GRIT (Paramount, 2010)

DIRECTORS: Joel & Ethan Coen;  PRODUCERS: Joel & Ethan Coen, Scott Rudin;  WRITERS: screenplay by Joel & Ethan Coen based on Charles Portis novel of same title;  CINEMATOGRAPHER: Roger Deakins

CAST: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Hailee Stanfeld, Barry Pepper, Dakin Matthews, Paul Rae, Domhnall Gleeson, Elizabeth Marvel, Roy Lee Jones, Ed Corbin, Leon Russom, Bruce Green

(Rather than rehashing the film’s plot, which does adhere closely to the novel, allow me to direct you to my review of the novel, which you can read here.  I also reviewed the original film and if you wish, you can read it here.)

An off-screen Mattie Ross, now a 40-year-old spinster, sets the stage for what is to come: 

"People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day.  I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band."

This passage also opens Charles Portis' novel.  It is significant that the Coens opened the film in this manner.  They are on record as saying that they did not intend to film a remake of the 1969 original.  Instead, they indicated that their goal was to film the book.  Their plans are further re-enforced by the fact that Marguerite Roberts, who wrote the screenplay for the original, received no mention in their version’s credits.

I’m not sure why the Coens shied away from the original screenplay, since it was skillfully written by Roberts.  It followed its original source much more closely than most screenplays do.  And because it does, the Coens in their efforts to, as they said, film the book means that the films share many common characteristics.

Okay, so it isn't an official remake.  Nevertheless, both films feature the same characters, much of the same dialogue, and many of the same scenes.  That sounds like a remake, doesn't it?  So, let's call it an unofficial remake and let it go at that.

"I'm a foolish old man who's been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpie in trousers and a nincompoop."

The films do differ in some respects, of course, or else why bother with producing a second one.  For one thing, the original was a John Wayne vehicle.  Never for one moment does the viewer forget that he is the star of the film.

The remake (well, it is) is not a star vehicle.  It is more of an ensemble effort that is made possible because it does not star a legend and the fact that better actors are cast in the two most important supporting roles.  Matt Damon, as one would expect, is a big improvement over singer Glen Campbell in the role of Texas Ranger LeBoeuf.  And not only is 13-year-old Hailee Standfeld, as Mattie Ross, an improvement over 21-year-old Kim Darby, the character's part has been elevated to a position more in keeping with the novel.

 

the "harpie in trousers" and the "nincompoop"

Both Wayne and Jeff Bridges are very good in the role of U.S. marshal Rooster Cogburn.  But they are different Roosters.  Bridges plays it just as mean and ornery as Wayne, but he is more subdued and doesn't dominate scenes the way Wayne did in the original.  Partly that has to do with the different approaches of the two actors and partly because Bridges had better support in the two pivotal supporting roles.

The remake is an improvement in a couple of other ways as well.  The 1969 film was beautifully photographed by Lucien Ballard.  However, the snow-capped peaks and quaking aspens of the Colorado Rockies was not a good stand-in for Oklahoma.  For anyone familiar with the geography of eastern Oklahoma all that majestic scenery can be disconcerting.  I was disconcerted.  I don’t know why the Coens didn’t use Oklahoma locations, but at least the ones they chose in Texas and New Mexico look much more authentic than those featured in the original film did.

The other improvement concerns the ending of the film.  For the most part, Roberts stuck fairly close to the novel when she wrote the screenplay for the original film, but she did deviate when it came to the film’s conclusion.  It probably wasn’t her idea, but that of the producers who wanted John Wayne to ride off into the sunset in a manner in keeping with his legendary status.

The Coens stayed with the book and the way they staged it is perfect.  The beginning and the ending are bookends that serve to emphasize their great admiration for Portis’ classic novel.

I like both films.  The 1969 film, even with some of its drawbacks, is still very enjoyable.  The Coens, to their credit, have improved upon what was already a very good film.  That doesn’t always happen with remakes (see 3:10 to Yuma, for example) I hope they revisit the Western genre soon.

REVIEWS

“TRUE GRIT seems to be an honest stab at transferring a beloved book as accurately as possible from page to screen." – Richard Corliss in Time

“Steinfeld is the heart, star and glory of TRUE GRIT.” – Richard Corliss in Time

“… justice comes swiftly but fairly, and no one ends up dead who didn’t have it coming.  It is, at bottom, an emotional, even ardent, film. – David Carr in The New York Times

“Nothing very startling happens, but the Coens have a sure hand, and Bridges, in the old John Wayne role, plays a man, not a myth; you can sense Rooster’s stink and his nasty intelligence, too.” – David Denby in The New York Times

“Roger Deakins … tops himself here, fashioning scenes that have weight and resonance.” – Leonard Maltin

“But the real reason to see this film is the work of the Coens’ regular collaborators, cinematographer Roger Deakins and composer Carter Burwell, who supply the visual and auditory landscapes that are TRUE GRIT’s most notable achievement.” – Christopher Orr in The Atlantic

TRUE GRIT (Paramount, 1969)

 

Judge Parker's courthouse as it looks today

DIRECTOR: Henry Hathaway;  PRODUCER: Hal B. Wallis;  WRITERS: screenplay by Marguerite Roberts based on Charles Portis novel of same title; CINEMATOGRAPHY: Lucien Ballard

CAST: John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Jeremy Slate, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Alfred Ryder, Strother Martin, Jeff Corey, Ron Soble, John Fiedler, James Westerfield, John Doucette, Donald Woods, Edith Atwater, John Pickard, Myron Healey, H.W. Gim, Boyd Morgan, Stuart Randall, Guy Wilkerson, Hank Worden


THE PLOT.
You probably already know the plot, don’t you?  Well, just in case you don’t, here is how the story begins.

Fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), from near Dardanelle, Arkansas in Yell County, travels to Fort Smith to settle her dead father’s affairs.  Her father was murdered in that town by a man who worked for him, a man who called himself Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey).  After killing her father, Chaney robbed him of his horse and his money.  Apparently, the fugitive has fled to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) and there are reports that he has joined up with the “Lucky” Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) gang.
 

21-year-old Kim Darby as 14-year-old Mattie Ross

Mattie is not content to just settle her father’s affairs (outwitting a horse trader portrayed by Strother Martin in some delightful scenes), but also plans to go after Chaney and bring him back to Fort Smith for trial.  The federal judge in Fort Smith is Judge Isaac Parker (James Westerfield) and his court for the Western District of Arkansas has jurisdiction over not only western Arkansas, but also the Indian Territory in any case involving a white person.
 
Since Mattie knows she can’t travel alone into that treacherous territory and achieve her goal of capturing Chaney and since the territory comes under federal jurisdiction, she decides to recruit a U.S. deputy marshal to assist her, one who possesses “true grit.”


MATTIE (Kim Darby): “Who’s the best marshal they have?”

SHERIFF (John Doucette): “Bill Waters is the best tracker.  The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn, a pitliless man, double tough, fear don’t enter into his thinking.  I’d have to say L.T. Quinn is the straightest, he brings prisoners in alive.”

MATTIE: “Where would I find this Rooster?”


After Mattie meets Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn (John Wayne), she isn’t sure that he is the kind of man that she is seeking, a man who has “true grit,” a quality that she recognizes because she personally possesses it in full measure.  He is a one-eyed, hard-drinking, ruthless, overweight man who for his part isn’t sure that he wants to work for any woman, especially Mattie.  However, greed overcomes his reluctance when Mattie offers to pay him a hundred dollars, his asking price for the job.  It is more than Mattie wants to pay, but she is able to force a compromise by paying him fifty now and promising the other fifty after the mission is accomplished.

Who knew aspens grew in Oklahoma?

Matters become even more complicated when a Texas Ranger (Glen Campbell) by the name of LaBouef (pronounced La-Beef) arrives in Fort Smith.  He is also on Chaney’s trail.  It seems that Chaney killed a state senator in Texas and that state and the senator’s family have placed a bounty on the fugitive’s head. The marshal and the ranger, although they have taken a strong disliking to each other, decide to join forces and split the proceeds  -- assuming they are able to capture – or kill – Chaney.

Neither of the lawmen wants a fourteen-year-old girl to tag along and they attempt to leave her behind, but they don’t know Mattie.  She will not be denied.  The three, at odds with each other and with differing goals, ride into the territory in search of Tom Chaney.


THE STARS.
The role of Rooster Cogburn, as everyone knows, is the role for which John Wayne finally won a long overdue Best Actor Oscar.  His only other nomination had occurred exactly twenty years earlier when he was nominated for his role as Sgt. Stryker in SANDS OF IWO JIMA (Republic, 1949).  He could have been nominated, but wasn’t, for his roles as Tom Dunson or Nathan Brittles or Tom Doniphon.  The biggest oversight, however, came when he was overlooked for what was his greatest performance, that of Ethan Edwards in THE SEARCHERS (WB, 1956).  Even harder to explain is the fact that the film did not receive a single nomination for anything.


ROOSTER COGBURN (John Wayne): “Boots, I got Hayes and some youngster outside with Moon and Qunicy. I want you to bury ‘em for me. I’m in a hurry.”
 
CAPTAIN BOOTS FINCH (Ron Soble): “They’re dead?”

ROOSTER COGBURN: “Well, I wouldn’t want you to bury ‘em if they wasn’t.”


Variety praised Wayne’s performance: “…it’s mostly Wayne all the way.  He towers over everything in the film….He rides tall in the saddle in this character role of ‘the fat old man.’”

Roger Ebert wrote: “Hathaway…has made the movie of his lifetime and given us a masterpiece….Wayne towers over this special movie.”

Wayne’s performance as Rooster Cogburn was not his greatest, but it was very good.  There is, however, some irony in the fact that he won the award for what in effect is a self-parody.  It is generally conceded that he didn’t win for that film anyway, that he was rewarded for his body of work.  If so, it isn’t the only time that such a thing has occurred.  And there is little doubt that TRUE GRIT represented his last chance for a bite of the academy apple – with one exception, albeit a slim one.  He might have been considered for his role as J.B. Books in his very last film, THE SHOOTIST (Paramount, 1976), had he not won earlier.  But maybe not, since he did not receive a nomination for that role.

Glen Campbell, originally from near Delight, Arkansas, made his film debut in TRUE GRIT.  When I first viewed the film right after it was released, I couldn’t help but think how much better it would have been if a more talented actor had been chosen to play LaBeouf, the Texas Ranger.  I still felt that way each time I watched it over the years.  But I also felt that it wasn’t fair to Campbell, a hugely talented singer and musician (later inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame), that he was put in such a position, forced to try to hold his own with so many seasoned professionals.  The director, Henry Hathaway, had not wanted him and reportedly gave the novice actor a hard time.  That led to some conflict during the production because Duvall objected strenuously to Hathaway’s badgering of Campbell, which led Wayne to take Hathaway’s side.  Wayne probably remembered how as a young actor he had been tormented by John Ford and may have thought that it was how veteran directors had to operate in order to elicit good performances from young actors.

Glen Campbell, Texas Ranger

Campbell had no illusions about his acting.  He once said, “I’d never acted in a movie before, and every time I see TRUE GRIT I think my record is still clean.”  But when I watched the film recently, I reconsidered his performance.  It wasn’t exactly great, but it wasn’t that bad either.  I now think that had he continued to work at it he could have become a competent actor. 

The following year he starred in one last film.  It was NORWOOD (Paramount, 1970).  Like TRUE GRIT, it was based on an excellent Charles Portis novel with a screenplay written by Marguerite Roberts, was produced by Hal Wallis, and co-starred Kim Darby.  Instead of John Wayne, however, the third lead role went to football star Joe Namath. 

The film was not a success and though Campbell would later make a few cameo film appearances, he chose to concentrate on his music.

Kim Darby had appeared in three feature films prior to TRUE GRIT, but the film’s success and popularity didn’t do much to advance her career either.  Like Campbell, she gave a good performance, but the role of Mattie Ross called for a stronger – and younger – actress.  If it is true that Darby didn’t look as old as her age at the time, twenty-one, it is also true that she looked much older than Mattie’s fourteen.

Wayne was also older than his character was in the book.  He was 61 at the time while his character in the book was about forty.  It didn’t really matter, but I’m certain there were no deputy marshals that age hunting down desperadoes in the Indian Territory.

 Added to the other conflicts already mentioned, it seems that Wayne had no liking for Darby.  He had wanted another actress to be cast in the role and was extremely critical of Darby’s acting.  He was also critical of her work ethic, later stating that he found her to be unprofessional.  But if so, it is impossible to detect any evidence of conflict between the two on the screen.

After starring with Campbell in NORWOOD, Darby was thereafter mostly limited to acting in TV productions.


THE SUPPORTING CAST.
Robert Duvall began his acting career on the stage in the late ‘50’s and then became an extremely busy TV actor in the 60’s.  He made his feature film debut in 1962 in a small but effective role as Boo Radley in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (UI, 1962).  Afterwards he returned to TV and the stage for most of the rest of the decade.  Then in the late ‘60’s he began to appear in a number of feature films.  He had appeared in a ton of TV Westerns but his role as “Lucky” Ned Pepper served as his first in a Western feature film.

The following year he gained good notices as Frank Burns in M*A*S*H (Fox, 1970).  But it was because of his role as Tom Hagen in THE GODFATHER (Paramount, 1972) that his career really took off.  For his performance, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.  That was only the beginning.  He has since been nominated on five other occasions and has won one award.  He received the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in TENDER MERCIES (EMI, 1983).  He is one who pulled off the rare feat of graduating from the ranks of supporting players to become a star.

He gave a strong performance in TRUE GRIT and he appeared in several other Western films, but his greatest performance in a Western was as Gus MaCrae in the TV mini-series LONESOME DOVE (Motown, 1989).  Perhaps I’m prejudiced, but I think it was, at least to this point, his greatest performance ever.

Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call

The film includes a number of familiar and welcome faces, actors such as Strother Martin (such a good actor), Jeff Corey, Dennis Hopper, Jeremy Slate, Hank Worden, Stuart Randall (his final film), John Doucette, Guy Wilkerson, and John Fiedler (as the lawyer J. Noble Dagget).  It was also nice to see Myron Healey, who played badmen in a countless number of TV and movie Westerns, get to portray a lawman for a change.


THE DIRECTOR.
Henry Hathaway, seventy-one-years-old, had been directing films since 1932. His first was a Zane Grey story, HERITAGE OF THE DESERT (Paramount).  The director’s next seven films were also Westerns based on Zane Grey stories.  Randolph Scott, in his first starring roles, starred in six of the eight.  All had been filmed as silent films and Hathaway’s films relied extensively on stock footage from the silent productions.  They were all entertaining and well-made B+ programmers that were enjoyed by Western movie fans.

In a directing career that lasted four decades, he directed sixty-five films, including twenty Westerns.  

His first film with John Wayne had been THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS (Paramount, 1941), followed by NORTH TO ALASKA (Fox, 1960), CIRCUS WORLD (Paramount, 1964), THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER (Paramount, 1965) and TRUE GRIT.

The Director

THE WRITERS.
Screenwriter Marguerite Roberts and her husband, also a writer, were blacklisted during the ‘50’s communist witch-hunt days.  As a result, beginning in the early years of that decade and extending into the early ‘60’s, there is a ten-year gap in her filmography.  What makes this ironic is the fact that John Wayne, who never made a secret of his right wing political views or his support of the blacklist, found himself starring in a film whose screenwriter had been victimized by that same blacklist.  Roberts wasn’t the only individual associated with the film to have experienced such a fate during that era.  Jeff Corey, who portrayed Tom Chaney, had also been blacklisted.  Surely, Wayne was aware of the blacklisting of Roberts and Corey, but if so, he never referred to it and evidently, it was never the source of any conflict during the production.

Roberts did not depart much from Charles Portis’ novel in her adaptation.  Her major change was in the ending.  As one critic noted, the ending was changed in order to allow John Wayne to ride into the sunset.

Earlier I reviewed Portis’ novel and you can read that review here.


CINEMATOGRAPHY AND LOCATION.
Lucien Ballard’s career as a cinematographer extended all the way back to the mid-30s, when he began working on what were primarily B-movies, including some of the Charles Starrett Westerns at Columbia.  In the ‘50’s, he began to work on more prestigious films

Among his Western credits are RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (MGM, 1962), THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER (Paramount, 1965, starring John Wayne and directed by Henry Hathaway), WILL PENNY (Paramount, 1968), THE WILD BUNCH (WB, 1969), as well as Audie Murphy’s final film, A TIME FOR DYING (1969).

Ballard was a native of Oklahoma and must have been amused by the locations that were chosen for TRUE GRIT.  It is true that there are hills in eastern Oklahoma, but no snow-capped peaks!  Nevertheless, there they are in the film – along with golden aspens shimmering in the breeze, which are also not found in Oklahoma.  It is true that the Colorado locations that were filmed are much more spectacular than anything found in Oklahoma and that Ballard’s expert photography made beautiful use of them, but it is disconcerting for any viewer who has any knowledge of the geography of the area in which the story is set.

But if it is true that nobody should go to a movie to learn history, then I guess it would be fair to say the same thing about geography.

ROOSTER COGBURN.

In addition to TRUE GRIT (1969), the Rooster Cogburn character has been the subject of two feature films and one TV movie. 

Two other feature films:

ROOSTER COGBURN (Universal, 1975)

DIRECTOR: Stuart Miller;  PRODUCER: Hal B. Wallis;  WRITERS: screenplay by Martha Hyer (as Martin Julien) suggested by Charles Portis novel, True Grit; Cinematographer: Harry Stradling, Jr.

STARRING: John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn



TRUE GRIT (Paramount 2010)

DIRECTORS: Joel and Ethan Coen;  PRODUCERS:  Joel and Ethan Coen;  WRITERS: screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen based on Charles Portis novel of same title;  CINEMATOGRAPHY: Roger Deakins

STARRING: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Stanfield

You can read my review of this film here.


TV movie (filmed as pilot for possible series that never developed):

TRUE GRIT (Paramount TV, 1978)

DIRECTOR: Richard T. Heffron;  PRODUCER: Sandor Stern;  WRITERS: screenplay by Sandor Stern based on characters created by Charles Portis in novel of same title;  CINEMATOGRAPHY: Stevan Larner

STARRING: Warren Oates, Lisa Pelikan 

 “LUCKY” NED PEPPER (Robert Duvall):  “What’s your intention?  Do you think one on four is a dogfall?”

ROOSTER COGBURN (John Wayne):  “I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned.  Or see you hanged in Fort Smith at Judge Parker’s convenience.  Which’ll it be?”

NED PEPPER: “I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.”

ROOSTER COGBURN: “Fill your hands, you sonvabitch!”