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My blog isn’t usually about movies per se, and neither is today’s post.  The old movies focused on interaction between the movie characters, and dialogue.  There weren’t “green screens” but those movies were watchable over and over because they connected with me.

Many actors stand out as “originals”,  in my opinion John Wayne was an original and so was Katherine Hepburn.

They starred together for the first and only time together in a movie called “Rooster Cogburn”.  It was a movie that won no awards, but for me it shone because of the chemistry and respect that I felt between the two actors.

Rooster Cogburn was the character that John Wayne created for his movie True Grit (1969). He earned an Oscar for that role, and a remake since was a pale comparison to what Duke created.

I saw that movie from the back seat of my parents blue Ford station wagon at the drive-in theatre.  The speaker was hooked on the car window where Dad sat. My brother and I were in the back seat and the “house” was filled with cars of all types, the movie began just after sunset.  Those were the days of popcorn and bench seats !

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The old movies, especially the westerns (or dusters we called them), were a mixture of humor, adventure and in the case of Rooster Cogburn “true grit”.

The sequel entitled “Rooster Cogburn” with Katharine Hepburn was also full of wonderful memorable lines by each of these “originals”.

I just want to share a few quotes from each of these two movies today.

First some quotes from True Grit.

Let me set up the scene for the first quote: Rooster and his two travelling companions stop for a drink. Mattie is a strong-willed young woman who has hired Rooster to find the man who shot her father.  La Boeuf is a Texas lawman who also has score to settle with the man who is wanted for killing Mattie’s father.  La Boeuf is the opposite of Rooster, young and charming and also from Texas.

Mattie: [drinking water from river near camp] That tastes like iron!
La Boeuf: You’re lucky to be where water’s so handy. I’ve seen the time I’ve drank out of a filthy hoofprint and I was glad to get it.
Rooster: If ever I meet one of you Texas wadis who ain’t drunk from a hoofprint, I think I’ll… I’ll shake their hand, or buy them a Daniel Webster cigar! [he looks over La Boeuf’s horse] How long you boys down there been mounted on sheep?
La Boeuf: Go ahead and have your little joke. But I’ll tell you one thing: that little fella there will still be running when that big American stud of yours is winded and collapsed.
Rooster: Ha — sheep! Heh, heh…

Along the way Rooster questions a man named Quincy trying to locate where the fugitive Ned Pepper might be hiding.

Quincy: I don’t know any Ned Pepper. What’s he look like?
Rooster: Short, feisty fella. He’s got a messed-up lower lip. I shot him in it.
Quincy: In the lip? What was you aiming at?
Rooster: His upper lip.

Now a couple quotes

from the movie Rooster Cogburn movie starring John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn.

Katherine Hepburn plays the daughter of a preacher, she is accompanying Rooster Cogburn as she is determined to ensure the outlaw Hawk is brought to justice.

Rooster Cogburn tries to leave her behind but she is just as stubborn as he is, that’s what happens in the brief trailer below.

Along the way while chasing the outlaws,

the characters of Rooster Cogburn and Eula Goodnight grow in respect for each other despite their differences, and they grow “fond”.

Here are a couple quotes from their interactions.

• (John Wayne) “How old are you?”
• (Katharine Hepburn) “Shall we say it has already struck midnight?”
• (John Wayne) “Ma’am, I don’t know much about thoroughbreds; horses or women. Them that I did know, I never liked. They’re too nervous and spooky; they scare me. But you’re one high-bred filly that don’t. ‘Course, I don’t know what you’re talking about half the time.”

Katherine Hepburn as Eula Goodnight begrudgingly respects the rough-edged Rooster Cogburn who has earned a piece of her heart, and she gets in the final retort in their feisty but velvet gloved verbal jabs.

• (Katharine Hepburn) “Reuben, I have to say it. Livin’ with you has been an adventure any woman would relish for the rest o’ time. I look at cha, with your burned out face and your big belly and your bear-like paws and your shining eye, and I have to say you’re a credit to the whole male sex, and I’m proud to have ya for my friend.”
• (John Wayne) “I’ll be damned if she didn’t get the last word in again. Well –

I hope you noticed the highlighted links in the post, I added those for anyone who wants to know more about the movies or the actors.

Thanks for reading, and looking forward to hearing from you. – David