Rooster Cogburn is an epic western film starring John Wayne as Marshal Rooster Cogburn, a one-eyed upholder of the law in the territory, Katharine Hepburn as Miss Eula Goodnight, the bible-thumping daughter of the Reverend Goodnight played by Jon Lormer, and Richard Jordan who plays the mean and nasty outlaw gang leader Hawk. Most of the beautiful and spectacular landscapes are filmed in Smith Rock State Park in Oregon, USA.
The story begins with a gang of outlaws ambushing a U.S. Army patrol and killing all the soldiers. They steal a wagon loaded with nitroglycerin which they need to help them rob a town's bank. Marshal Rooster Cogburn is given the job of hunting them down and bringing the gang to justice. As the gang flee with the explosives they come across a small Indian settlement with a missionary church run by the Reverend Goodnight and his daughter Eula. The thieves get drunk and abuse the Indians and when the Reverend Goodnight tries to stop them the gang leader Hawk kills him. Marshal Rooster Cogburn stops at the settlement after the gang has gone and teams up with Miss Eula Goodnight and a surviving Indian boy called Wolf, played by Richard Romancito, and together the three set about tracking down the killers and the explosives. They eventually catch up with the gang and manage to retrieve the wagon load of nitroglycerin by a clever bluff which involved Miss Goodnight abandoning some of her precious goodly principles and using a gun herself. Marshal Rooster Cogburn, Miss Goodnight and Wolf then start the long and dangerous journey with the wagon back to civilisation. The film continues...
Rooster Cogburn is the follow-up to the classic western film True Grit in which John Wayne won an Oscar, and deserves a place in any epic western film collection. John Wayne and Katharine Hepburn work very well together and add some light-hearted touches to this exciting western film.
Film and Movie Information
Rooster Cogburn was released by Universal Pictures in 1975 and was directed by Stuart Millar. The prncipal stars were John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn and Anthony Zerbe. The movie was filmed in Technicolor, in Oregon, USA.
