Those DVD Beaver frame captures from the recently-released Bluray of Henry Hathaway‘s True Grit reminded me how similar this 1969 film is to the current Coen brothers version. Same or similar courtroom dialogue, same horse-bargaining scene, same rattlesnake bite near the end, same shoot-out dialogue (“one-eyed fat man,” “fill your hand!,” etc.).
I can’t see clear to buying the Bluray, but the ornery rascal in me would like to argue that the Hathaway isn’t half bad and that the Coen’s version is somewhat better, okay, but not that much. I don’t know if I could make this stick — we’re talking Henry effin’ Hathaway, after all, and I’d also have Glenn Campbell as “LaBeef” to contend with — but I’d like to give it a shot, just for fun.
