Jeremy Slate

Young tomboy Mattie Ross (Kim Darby) loves her father. But when this father gets killed by a tramp called Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey), she is determined to see him hang. She goes to Fort Smith and discovers that Tom Chaney has fled in the Indian territory, where only a marshall can get him. A marshall who has true grit, in order to vanquish not only Chaney, but also the group of outlaws he has connected with, led by the notorious bandit Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) and including Moon (Dennis Hopper) and Quincy (Jeremy Slate). So Mattie finds the toughest marshall of the West : the one-eyed Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn (John Wayne), who's never known a dry day in his life, and hires him - with $100 - to go after Chaney and Pepper. Rooster soon pairs with young Texican La Boeuf (Glen Campbell) who also looks for Chaney as he had killed a Texas-senator before murdering Mattie's father. Mattie and La Boeuf are soon at odds, as the latest doesn't want her to join the chase, but Mattie hangs on and Rooster lets her come with them. Strong-headed Mattie, fast talking La Boeuf and sharp Rooster engage themselves in a battle of wits and, at the same time, on Chaney's tracks. After an ambush where Moon and Quincy are killed, Mattie gets face to face with Chaney and wounds him before being kidnapped by Ned Pepper. Ned forces Rooster and La Boeuf to withdraw and leaves Mattie with Chaney as a hostage. But La Boeuf comes back and captures Chaney. Mattie and La Boeuf witness the last fight between Ned Pepper and three of his men on one side, Rooster all alone on the other. They all charge on their horses and Rooster kills three men and injures Pepper before his horse (Bo) is killed under him. He desperately tries to get his gun as the dying Ned comes closer. At the very last moment, La Boeuf fires from the hill he stands on with Mattie and shoots Ned before Rooster gets killed. Chaney then escapes and hits La Boeuf on the head with a big stone, only to get shot again by Mattie. With the gunfire, she falls in a pit where a deadly snake threatens her. Rooster arrives at that moment, kills Chaney who was still trying to hurt Mattie and goes down the pit to save Mattie. The snake bites her and Rooster's unable to go up the pit with the unconscious Mattie. La Boeuf wakes up just a little while to pull them out with a horse and a rope, before falling dead. Rooster leaves him on the field and kills his horse under him to bring Mattie to a doctor. At the end of the movie, Mattie is back to her ranch where she heals slowly. Rooster comes and visits her. She shows him the cemetery where her father rests and she offers him, as he has no family, to rest beside her after his death. He takes on the offer with a joke and departs, jumping over a fence and yelling: "Come and see a fat old man sometime!"

In the summer of 1942, American Lieutenant Colonel Robert T. Frederick (William Holden), a War Department staff officer with no prior combat or command experience, is summoned to Britain where he is selected by Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten (Patric Knowles) to raise a commando force composed of both American and Canadian personnel for operations in German-occupied Norway. Robert had written a report criticizing this plan of Mountbatten and was summoned to explain his position. Mountbatten refuses to back down, even after Robert says that there is no extraction plan for the troops from Norway. Mountbatten assigns Robert to raise this brigade. Back in the U.S., Frederick arrives at the derelict Fort William Henry Harrison in Montana where he receives his American troops - all of whom are jailbirds, never-do-wells, and misfits. When the hand-picked elite Canadian contingent arrives, there is immediate friction with the Americans and chaos ensues. Robert's team includes Maj. Cliff Bricker (Vince Edwards) (who joined the paratroopers as he hated to fly). The camp is in a dilapidated state and Robert says Cliff is the biggest hustler in the army and asks him to arrange all the supplies the camp needs. Capt. Cardwell (Tom Stern), is the Garrison CO of Fort William Henry Harrison US troops include Pvt./Cpl. Omar Greco (Richard Jaeckel) (who thinks about escaping the camp), Pvt. Billy 'Bronc' Guthrie (Bill Fletcher), Pvt./Cpl. Rockwell W. "Rocky" Rockman (Claude Akins), Pvt. Theodore Ransom (Andrew Prine) (who went AWOL from his previous unit after he struck the CO after he serenaded his girlfriend. He walked into Fort Harrison voluntarily). Canadians are led by Maj. Alan Crown (Cliff Robertson), Cpl./Sgt. Peacock (Jack Watson), Pvt. Henri Laurent (Jean-Paul Vignon), Sgt. Patrick O'Neill (Jeremy Slate) (close combat specialist). The rabble-rousing Americans needle the docile Canadians and try to provoke them. There is healthy competition between the Americans and the Canadians. Crown insists that Robert should take advantage of the Canadian combat experience, but Robert points out that Canadians lost at Dunkirk, and he is training the unit to win. Robert asks Crown to get O'Neill to beat the crap out of Rockwell in the mess hall in order to demonstrate the superior training and fighting abilities of the Canadians. O'Neill takes command of the hand-to-hand combat training for the brigade. The brigade is trained to ski on the icy slopes near the camp. The Canadians are under strict order not to fight the Americans. The 2 units go to a bar, where the local lumberjacks' barge in and insult the Canadians. The Canadians give as much room to the locals as possible and are looking to avoid a fight. But when the lumberjacks hit Sgt Peacock, the Americans come to their aid and beat the locals in the bar brawl. This brings the 2 units closer together as one team. Robert is delighted to see the brigade coming together, but orders $1/month to deducted from each man's pay till the $3000 damage bill is repaid. By the time Frederick manages to overcome the national differences and mold the First Special Service Force into a highly trained commando unit, he is informed that the Allied High Command have had a change of heart and offered the Norwegian missions to British troops. Left without a role, the brigade is ordered to be disbanded, and its soldiers reassigned. Frederick remains undeterred and manages to persuade Lieutenant General Mark Clark (Michael Rennie) (Commander of the U.S. Fifth Army) to give his men a chance to prove themselves with a new mission in Italy. Clark's skeptical deputy commander, Major General Maxwell Hunter (Carroll O'Connor), orders the 1st Special Service Force to reconnoiter a German garrison in a well defended (and surrounded by mountains) Italian town, but Frederick goes one better and captures the entire town. He devises a plan to enter the town by trekking over a mountain and then entering the town by hiking 2 miles in ice cold water of the mountain river. Robert and his men enter the town by stealth and kill the German's one by one, even taking over their tanks, defending the city. Gradually, they take a large number of German soldiers as their prisoners. In the process, they earn the nickname "Die Teufelsbrigade" - The Devil's Brigade (given to them by the enemy CO). Robert earns the respect of his men, who celebrate his birthday in a grand style. Convinced now of the ability of Frederick's men, Lieutenant General Clark promotes Frederick to full Colonel and gives them a task no other Allied troops have managed to accomplish - to capture Monte la Difensa. The town is a key point on the way to Rome. Allied armies have tried to take the town for 3 weeks, with heavy casualties, and failed each time. Facing severe obstacles, the Devil's Brigade attacks the undefended eastern side of the mountain by scaling a cliff the Germans believed could not be climbed. The Allied forces pound an artillery barrage from the front, diverting the German attention, allowing Robert's men to climb the cliff in 3 hrs. The cliff side of the plateau was poorly protected, and Robert's brigade was able to climb on top. Reaching the top as a unit (Germans were occupied with the artillery barrage from the front side), they take the stronghold despite considerable losses, allowing the Allies to continue their advance north into Italy. The Brigade continued to fight many more battles throughout Italy till Rome. They built a myth about themselves and too many good soldiers died to keep it true.

Ranch owner Katie Elder's four sons determine to avenge the murder of their father and the swindling of their mother. The Elder boys return to Clearwater, Texas for their Mother's funeral. John, the eldest, is a well-known gunfighter and trouble follows him wherever he goes. The boys try to get their ranch back from the town's gunsmith who won it from their father in a card game, after which he was murdered. Troubles come, however, just because they carry the Elder name. —anonymous

An executive, unhappy with his daughter's choice for a future husband, accepts a transfer to his firm's Stockholm branch and takes her along, only to discover that Sweden is far more sexually liberal than the United States. Single father Bob Holcomb, dissatisfied with his daughter JoJo's choice of partner, seizes an unexpected opportunity to bring her on a trip to Sweden in order for her to forget all thoughts on marriage. Confronted with liberal Swedish morals, he finds out that marriage might not be too bad an idea after all.

When he finds out his boss is retiring to Arizona, a sailor has to find a way to buy the Westwind, a boat that he and his father built. He is also caught between two women: insensitive club singer Robin and sweet Laurel. Elvis plays Ross Carpenter, a fishing guide/sailor who loves his life out on the sea. When he finds out his boss is retiring to Arizona, he has to find a way to buy the Westwind, a boat that he and his father built. He is also caught between two women: insensitive club singer Robin and sweet Laurel. —Pat McCurry <ccgrad97@aol.com>