Wayne did a fine job on the original, but I preferred the Jeff Bridges/Coen Bros. version. You can dig a 2-disk blu ray out of the K-mart bins that has both....both are keepers IMHO!
The scenery in the original is to die for, though it’s obviously not Arkansas. ( it’s why tourists flock to Colo from Arkansas every summer and not the other way around)
Both are good. I think the John Wayne version could have been his best ever if he had gotten a real actor rather than musician Glen Campbell as his co-star. I loved and respected Glen as a musician but he just couldn't act (he was awful) and really brought the movie down a notch. In both versions, though, it was the young girl who stole the show. Since Kim Hunter had to create the character on screen first I'll give her the nod but both actresses did great jobs. This is important because the lesson of the movie is that, in the end, the person who really had "True Grit" was Mattie more than Rooster.