True Grit

Preeminent film historian Thomas Doherty explores the blockbuster 1969 film adaptation of the Charles Portis novel True Grit, which stars John Wayne in his only Oscar-winning performance.

The year 1969 was a tipping point for Hollywood cinema and a good year for Westerns. In 1968 the censorious Production Code was eliminated. American cinema responded immediately with a spree of theretofore unseen and unimaginable transgressions—one of which arrived in Henry Hathaway’s adaptation of Charles ...