True Grit begins, and has its heart in Arkansas. According to the narrator, Mattie Ross, 'People who don’t like Arkansas can go to the devil!' Photograph: Martha Holmes/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
'They have that big wide street there called Garrison Avenue like places out in the west. The buildings are made of fieldstone and all the windows need washing. I know many fine people live in Fort Smith and they have one of the nation’s most modern waterworks but it does not look like Arkansas to me.' Photograph: Science & Society Picture Library/SSPL via Getty Images
The action shifts to Oklahoma: 'Now I will say something about the land. Some people think the present state of Oklahoma is all treeless plains. They are wrong.' Photograph: MPI/Getty Images
John Wayne gave one of the performances of his career in the 1969 Henry Hathaway's film adaptation. He was accompanied by Glen Campell (of Wichita Lineman fame), who sucked Photograph: The Ronald Grant Archive
Rooster Cogburn leads the way, drunkenly, into outlaw territory Photograph: PR
In the novel, one of the (many) things the Texan Ranger LaBoeuf has against his fellow lawman Rooster Cogburn is the latter’s association with William Quantrill: 'I was told in Fort Smith that you rode with Quantrill and that border gang ... I have heard they were not soldiers at all but murdering thieves.' Photograph: PR
'What a writer!' said Roald Dahl. 'He hasn’t put a foot wrong anywhere.' Photograph: PR
