Rooster Cogburn

Rooster Cogburn loses his badge for leaving too many dead. He can have it back if he catches the gang that stole a military shipment of nitroglycerin. On the way he meets Eula Goodnight, a missionary whose father the same gang killed and who intends to go after them. They travel together and argue the whole way. Stuart Millar directs. John Wayne plays Cogburn and Katharine Hepburn plays Eula. The origin is plain. Wayne had won his only Oscar with True Grit in 1969 and the studio wanted the character back. The shape of this one comes from elsewhere: an old, cantankerous man and a devout, stubborn woman on a river journey is The African Queen exactly. It is the only film Wayne and Hepburn made together. Both were near the end of their careers, and the meeting is most of why the film is remembered. Reviews were mild; the screenplay was called thin and familiar, and the film was said to survive on the charisma of two actors. It did well commercially. Wayne made only one more film after this, The Shootist in 1976. Who it is for: viewers who like the classic western and want to see two great stars together. Who it is not for: the story is template and the action is weak. Anyone expecting the hardness of True Grit will not find it.