I think I remember the film fondly because it was probably the first John Wayne flick I ever went to.  My dad took me as a kid.  I recall thinking it was really cool because it was, well gritty, guys actually bled when they got shot compared to the old westerns that I would have seen on Saturday afternoons on TV up until then.  The film was made at a critical juncture in the history of the Western.  The look and feel of the Spaghetti Westerns were already reshaping the genre with a focus on ant-heros and morally questionable motives for even the good guys.  And the revisionist movement represented by films like the Wild Bunch, Little Big Man, McCabe and Mrs. Miller and even the Life and time of Judge Roy Bean was just getting off the ground.  Wayne was excellent in a role that was written to his strengths.  Glen Campbell was so bad as an actor that he is fun to watch.And I for one didn't find Kim Darby annoying, she was playing the role of the tenacious youngster as it was written.  I thought it was a fine character, the foil for Wayne's contanckerous old tough guy.  While it wasn't the last Western that the Duke made, it does have the feel of being the end of an era.

It's a great story, and a well made movie. However, I can only give it four stars because I just find the girl's character to be too annoying. She's so annoying that it distracts me from the movie. Can't she just use a contraction in her lines just a few times? I can only hear her say "I cannot...", "I do not..."' or "You will not..." so many times before it drives me crazy.

One of Wayne's better movies, in my opinion, or at least one of his more enjoyable and accessible ones. I've always been blunt about it; I don't like Wayne as an "actor" or as a person. In truth, he wasn't an actor-- he was essentially the same character in every movie he was in, in the same way Clint Eastwood was the same character in every Western or Cop movie he was in (although that changed somewhat as he and his talent matured). The difference, for me, was: I almost always was entertained by Eastwood's movies even when he was playing a fascistic fantasy figure. Not only was I bored by almost every John Wayne movie I ever saw, but I found his blustering, swaggering cowboy persona repellent, racist, and ridiculous. On a more elementary level, the difference between Wayne and a real actor is that the actor submerges himself into the part and the script (that is, if he's any good). If he's a magnetic actor, like Brando or Olivier or DeNiro at his best, he'll enhance the movie and elevate the performances of those he's working with. If he's John Wayne, the script seems almost an afterthought, the movie constructed around him for no other reason than to showcase John Wayne as John Wayne. "True Grit" may not have been a truly great movie, or the best Western ever made...it wasn't...but it's the first one I can remember seeing where Wayne actually functioned as a part of an ensemble cast and crew to create an effective, emotionally engaging drama. The true star of the film was Kim Darby (whatever happened to her? I always thought she was quite good back in the day). The cast is chock full of great actors-- Darby, Robert Duvall, Jeff Corey, Strother Martin, Dennis Hopper, Glen Campbell...well, ok, it's chock full of great actors and a mediocre one. Wayne's character isn't any more attractive than any other he's ever played, but for the first time I got a sense that he was actually acting as opposed to just being himself, take 'im or leave 'im. He actually seemed to be trying to breathe life into a genuine character that wasn't entirely based on his own inflated assumptions about himself and his image, and...for at least this once...he succeeded.

This was not his greatest role, to be sure. The lefto mopes in the Hollywood Academy always denied Duke the award for political reasons. They finally got a twinge of conscience and gave him the award, I suppose, for all the money he made for them. It is living proof that even the left-wingers love money more than slogans.

One of the Dukes better films. I believe he won his only oscar in this film. Kate Hepburn , Glen Cambell, and Bruce Dern are all very good in this movie. A bit dark in tone for a western it has a realism that sets it apart from your average western.

Not the best of Duke Westerns, but a great performance and worthy of his Oscar. This film is all Duke from beginning to end.