Rooster Cogburn

Over the Thanksgiving free preview of the premium movie channels, StarzEncore Westerns ran Rooster Cogburn, so I DVRed it and recently sat down to watch it.

John Wayne reprises the Rooster Cogburn character he played six years earlier in True Grit. By this time, his violent ways have caught up with him, as the judge in Fort Smith, AR (John McIntire), which serves is the administrative center for the Indian Territory that would become what is now Oklahoma, strips Rooster of his marshal's power. But, of course, you know that he's going to get a chance to make things right, and that comes fairly quickly. The Army is shipping a wagon full of explosives, and that gets waylaid by a gang led by Hawk (Richard Jordan). Rooster gets to go into Indian Territory to find that wagon.

The trail leads quickly to Fort Ruby, which is home to a small number of Indians and a couple of missionaries, Rev. Goodnight and his daughter Eula (Katharine Hepburn). Hawk and his men overrun the place and when Rev. Goodnight tries to stop it, he gets shot for his trouble. So when Rooster shows up, Eula is insistnt that she's going to go along with him to find the men who killed her father. Rooster understandably objects, but when you're dealing with somebody like any of Katharine Hepburn's characters, good luck with that. Also along for the journey is Wolf (Richard Romancito), one of Eula's students.

They eventually get control of the wagon with the explosives, which also has a useful Gatling gun, but Hawk and his men get away. Rooster has to get the explosives back to their rightful owners, while Hawk wants to get the wagon back, and kill Rooster in revenge. Eventually, Rooster transfers the contents of the wagon to a raft for transport by river, but that winds up putting him, Eula, and Wolf more squarely in danger when you consider Hawk can take the high ground.

The fact that Rooster and Eula wind up going down a river, combined with Eula being a missionary played by Katharine Hepburn, lead a lot of people to make comparisons to The African Queen. Those comparisons are obvious, and while The African Queen is the better movie, Rooster Cogburn is by no means a bad movie. Wayne and Hepburn have great chemistry together and it's obvious that despite their differences, they wind up developing a great deal of respect for one another. The script (written by actress Martha Hyer under a pseudonym) breaks no new ground, but serves as amiable entertainment. The scenery is lovely, although there's a caveat. The movie is supposed to take place in Oklahoma, but the film was filmed largely in Oregon. It looks great on screen, but Oklahoma never had mountains like that.

If you're looking for a nice movie for a rainy or snowy day that you can sit back with a bowl of popcorn and be entertained by, Rooster Cogburn fits the bill in spades. And if you wanted to introduce people to westerns or the films of John Wayne, this one isn't a bad place to start, either. Despite the similarities to The African Queen, I can highly recommend it.