Watch Jesse James at Bay For Free

How sad is this?

Excellent but underrated film

Absolutely brilliant

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

In the days before he was permanently playing himself in stories of the modern west, Roy Rogers played a number of real western characters and in Jesse James At Bay he plays the title role. And we learn the 'true' story that being that Jesse was not shot in the back by Bob Ford.When a couple of sharp crooks played by Pierre Watkin and Hal Taliaferro cheat a bunch of honest ranchers and farmers out of their spreads, sheriff Gabby Hayes on the Q.T. sends for Jesse who's been lying quiet in Nebraska and out of the reach of Missouri law enforcement. Of course this does present an ethical problem for Gabby as he is the sheriff and he is sending for a wanted outlaw.But not to be outdone Watkin and Taliaferro use a gambler named Clint Burns also played by Roy Rogers to sully Jesse's image as a Robin Hood. Nevertheless Gabby and Roy as Jesse get on to the scheme and turn it to their advantage quite cleverly.Roy does quite well in the dual role although later on I doubt his public would have tolerated a villainous Roy Rogers. Roy and Gabby have to contend with a pair of reporters played by Sally Payne and Gale Storm who want the 'real' story.As what was said in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 'print the legend'.

This is yet another wildly inaccurate Jesse James picture--and certainly not the first one featuring Roy Rogers. In fact, I just saw "Days of Jesse James" starring Rogers yesterday. Now call me a glutton for punishment, but I was just hoping that this film would at least try to be accurate---like Rogers' "Billy the Kid Returns". But, once again, it's just another poor film trying to capitalize on the myth of Jesse James. Because it's pure myth, in this film James is good. Sure, in real life he murdered several people and stole money from innocent folks--but here, he's like Robin Hood--and a Robin Hood that almost never kills anyone and, like a typical Rogers films, mostly shoots people in their shooting hand! Rogers plays Clint Burns and Jesse using the old 'identical strangers' cliché. Oddly, Burns is a bad man--a lookalike who evil bankers and speculators (it's ALWAYS evil bankers and speculators) have hired to commit crimes while posing as Jesse. That way, the nice Jesse will get blamed and the common folk will stop supporting him. But, eventually, Burns overplays his hand and is killed by Jesse in self-defense (his only killing in the film--again, it's SELF-DEFENSE!). Now Jesse pretends to be Burns and works to expose the schemers for who they really are.Along for the ride are Gabby Hayes (a Rogers regular supporting actor) and he plays the sheriff (again, a pretty common role for this grizzled old buzzard) as well as a nosy reporter lady (a common cliché, though very, very few existed in the mid-late 19th century) and her friend.Overall, a historical nightmare for history teachers like me, as almost nothing about this film approaches who James really was. On top of that, the story just abounds with clichés and feels like yet another sub-par Rogers film. He did do better films than this--a lot better. With better music and MUCH better stories.By the way, this is a VERY unusual film in that Roy does NOT play a particularly good guy and he also does not use this name for his character. A strange moral compass in this film, that's for sure.

When a crooked banker/railroad man attempts to swindle some farmers, Sheriff Gabby Hayes sends word to his old friend Jesse James (Roy Rogers), who robs the banks and railroads in order to make things right. The villain retaliates by hiring Jesse's slack-jawed double (Rogers again) to make trouble in order to discredit James.Jesse James At Bay is a typical but okay vehicle for Roy, who's pretty good at playing the heavy, though he gets to sing only once during the movie and then only a few verses.This is Roger's second time playing double in a movie, the first time being as Billy the kid and Billy's good-guy replacement in 1938's Billy The Kid Returns and the third being 1942's Sunset On The Desert.

Roy plays a dual role in this classic western. He plays both Jesse James and the identical bad-guy Clint burns. The case of mistaken identity causes some problems for Jesse as he gets put in jail, then accused of burning down Gabby's house. Gale plays a newspaper reporter who is trying to get the scoop on Jesse. Together she and Roy capture the James Gang. This film may not be historically accurate, but it is great fun and a must-see if you're a Roy Rogers fan or a Gale Storm fan. (Gale steals the picture from Roy).