Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

An Exercise In Nonsense

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Those who watched African Queen will understand from where this movie came from,this sequel of True Grit,they tried explore the chemistry of those greatest actors Duke and Kate and they got it,no doubt about that,the movie is funny and every characters are engaged in their roles,especially John McIntire as judge and Strother Martin as McCoy the wise balsa man...they are superb...Rooster and Eula are on fight every time,both have a own way to think about the right and wrong and they are completely opposite each other....about the movie??? doesn't matter at all!!We must point out the amazing western landscape,in particular way Rogue river in the Oregon!!!Resume:First watch: 1989 / How many: 2 /Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7.5

In 1975, John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn had one big movie left apiece to make in their long careers. "Rooster Cogburn" wasn't it, yet this manages to showcase both stars in an amiable-enough timekiller.Sometime after the events of "True Grit," our title protagonist (Wayne) loses his badge but gets a chance to get it back when a band of outlaws make off with a wagonload of nitro. En route to sell the explosives, they happen upon a church community, killing the reverend and making an enemy of his crusty Yankee daughter Eula Goodnight (Hepburn).Never mind the serious-sounding set-up: "Rooster Cogburn" is more playful than earnest, last in a long line of cowboy romps starring Wayne. Wonderfully shot by Harry Stradling, Jr. on location in Oregon, the film scores with plenty of banter between Duke and Kate."You have a lot of brass, Marshall," she tells him. "You will have need of it before we are through.""She sings a loud tune!" huffs Cogburn.Watching Hepburn and Wayne work together for the only time is plenty of fun. I'm not a big fan of hers, but as it turns out her big acting style complements his nicely. "Ayah," indeed!Richard Jordan is on hand as the main bad guy, Hawk. He plays his part even bigger than Wayne and Hepburn do theirs, which doesn't seem possible until you see the movie. You wish with his talent Jordan would have made a better impression, but he's saddled with the butt end of this mule train, having to be the heavy in a film where the action scenes play like the afterthoughts they no doubt were.The director, Stuart Millar, apparently annoyed Wayne with his inexperience. He doesn't do much to keep things moving. "I wish this thing had a little more giddyup to it," Cogburn grunts, meaning a raft he and Eula are riding with their Indian companion, Wolf (Richard Romancito) but perhaps referencing the other vehicle they find themselves on.Still, you do get a lot of fun moments along the film's ever-winding way, with Wayne and Hepburn settling in comfortably to their respective corners. Given how disparate their characters are, you expect more in the way of fireworks than you get, but Millar's emphasis on fun seems the right approach.Screen heavy Anthony Zerbe has a good turn as one of Hawk's riders, while Strother Martin shows up late in the film to pleasing effect. Both character parts are underwritten but effective.Martin was in "True Grit," too, playing another role. You get the feeling Wayne is too; Cogburn here is much mellower and a bit too soft for the workout Eula gives him. Still, I enjoy "Rooster" because I enjoy Wayne, and like seeing him having fun late in the game."Being around you pleases me," Rooster says, in one of his mushier moments. Something of the same sentiment applies for me, too.

Now that the two stellar co-stars are long gone, the truth can be told:Rooster Cogburn is turkey, a formulaic film designed by the marketing department, written by a writer paid by the word, directed by a producer who was faking it. Some posters praise the chemistry between Wayne and Hepburn. What chemistry? They seem to be reading their lines off a Teleprompter, and in a great hurry. This trivia tidbit tells it all:-- Director Stuart Millar insisted on so many takes that eventually John Wayne snapped, "God damn it Stuart, there's only so many times we can say these awful lines before they stop making any sense at all." --A better director might have been able to get truer performances out of these great stars, but Millar, a fine producer but apparently a talentless director, got little more than worn pennies. A good director would have told them to slow down, breathe, react and interact. Or just let these stars alone. There's not much of a plot, and the writer doesn't do much of setting up the relationship; Hepburn just suddenly decides to tag along with Wayne, after the promised posse just happens to not show up, and Wayne puts up very little argument against what should have been absolutely against his code. So the setup has little credibility to begin with. The comparison with African Queen is obvious, too obvious, complete with a ride down the rapids. It sets Rooster Cogburn a very high standard to live up to, and it falls flat. It looks like some movie execs figured it was a can't-fail formula. In African Queen there was some tension in the initial relationship between Hepburn and Bogart, two odd fish brought together, but both transform the other, so you get personality development in the film.But in Cogburn there is no personality development, and way too much chatter that makes you want to fall asleep. Hepburn is constantly spouting platitudes and homilies, while Wayne has little more than cornball lines. The other movie this inevitably gets compared with is The Shootist, Wayne's next and last film with Lauren Bacall (ironically, Bogart's long, faithful wife.) Here, Wayne showed he could still act, and there was real chemistry between Wayne and Bacall. I suspect when Bacall looks out the window crying, the tears were real, though she may have also been thinking of Bogie, who, like Wayne, died of lung cancer. By the 1970s the problem was not that audiences were tired of Westerns so much as that it was hard to find new angles on this genre. Cogburn tries, but needed a less routine plot. Rooster Cogburn falls into the "end of the cowboy era" Western, with the judge firing him for killing too many bad guys, but fails to develop the theme. The Shootist, on the other hand, succeeds wonderfully. Like Westerns at their best, it uses the genre to tell the story of a man dying of cancer, alone in a world that no longer has any use for gunslingers, who did good but was hated by almost everyone. You see some similarities in "Monte Walsh" decades later. It is the movie Rooster Cogburn tried to be. In short, a great Western transcends its genre. Rooster Cogburn, unfortunately, barely rises above a B movie, even with the heavy lifting of its stars.The low point in the movie is a plastered Wayne doing skeet shooting and never missing, but who can't stand up on his own, and then drives off with a wagon full of nitroglycerin, which could have blown up even with the most careful, sober handlers. The movie would have been better off if it had. Cogburn is full of such improbable details. Why are they hauling bottles of nitroglycerin when there are also crates labeled dynamite? Dynamite, invented in 1867, is stable in transport, and made nitroglycerin, which is extremely unstable and dangerous, obsolete. Obviously, based on the movie's rating, there are fans of John Wayne who will watch anything he's made. But fans of Katherine Hepburn will be appalled, for Rooster Cogburn is a disgrace to her memory. It is by far the worst movie she ever made; I can't think of anything even close. If you imagine seeing this movie without knowing who the two stars are, what you are left with is a lethargic, overly long chase with some of the most atrocious dialog every committed by a major studio. The script is garbage that leaves a bad taste long after seeing it. So, minus the stars, this movie would rate somewhere between a 4 and a 2. It is really that bad.Still, John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn could have been great in a Western together. I would have loved to have seen them in Going' South, instead of Jack Nicholson and Mary Steenburgen, especially in that scene with the brass bed and ropes. Hmmmm. You know, that's what Rooster Cogburn needed: for the Duke to tie Hepburn up and stick a gag in her mouth.

"Two of the most popular stars in screen history are brought together for the first time in the follow-up to 'True Grit'. The film returns John Wayne to the role of the rapscallion, eye-patched, whisky-guzzling Deputy Marshall that won him an 'Academy Award'. Katharine Hepburn is prim Eula Goodnight, a bible-thumping missionary who teams up with the gunfighter to avenge the death of her father. While in pursuit of the outlaws, a warm rapport develops between the rough-and-tumble lawman and the flinty reverend's daughter," according to the film's promotional description.While not promoted as such, this also seems to be a sideways follow-up to "The African Queen" (1951), which starred Ms. Hepburn. Realized by veteran producer Hal B. Wallis and wife Martha Hyer, the idea to bring the two legendary film stars together was a terrific one. But, the result stopped at stunt casting. Probably done when considering their age and potential for fireworks, everything seems to have been arranged to make it an easy assignment for the old pros. As a result, you have John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn going through the motions, and no fireworks.**** Rooster Cogburn (10/17/75) Stuart Millar ~ John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, Richard Jordan, Anthony Zerbe