TRUE GRIT starring John Wayne premiered on this day in 1969. 1969 was a pivotal year for the United States, bringing an end to a decade that bore witness to the high-profile assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Senator Bobby Kennedy, as well as the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, coupled with civil unrest on the home front. Three distinctly different Westerns graced the screen in 1969, closing out that tumultuous decade and putting the punctuation mark on Hollywood’s Golden Age which is typically acknowledged as concluding a few years earlier. There were other Westerns to hit theaters in 1969 but three immortalized the changing times through the medium of popular cinema; if THE WILD BUNCH was the future and BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID was the present, then TRUE GRIT was a nod to the passing of Hollywood’s Golden Age. The 2010 Coen Brothers re-make is a closer adaptation of the 1968 novel by Marine Corps veteran Charles Portis on which both films are based, but I have a soft spot in my heart for the 1969 John Wayne version, probably because I have such fond memories of watching it in my youth. It didn’t hurt that Wayne shoots a large loop-lever Winchester Model 1892 Saddle Ring Carbine in .44-40 Win one handed and fires what I believe is an 1873 Colt Single Action Army Revolver in .45 Long in his other in one of the greatest Western shoot-outs ever filmed. Wayne would receive his only Academy Award for his portrayal of U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn in the film. The final scene of TRUE GRIT, with the legendary John Wayne performing his own stunt, jumping his horse over that “four-rail fence,” is unforgettable, and a fitting way to tip one’s hat in respect to the sun setting on an era.

Sad to see you post this. Who exactly is ‘dumping votes?’

A national vote counting disgrace. 20 hours after the polls closed, California still can't tell voters who won. That's not democracy. That's dysfunction.

THOMAS JEFFERSON: "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%."