Watch The True Story of Jesse James For Free

Simply A Masterpiece

Pretty Good

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is a slight and plain biopic about Jesse James who ranks with Billy the Kid as the most famous of Western outlaws . Legend and folklore have cast him as a Robin Hood , a good boy forced by circumstances to follow a criminal life . The picture provides a simple portrait of Jesse and his band , as they move from Civil War to there territory becoming into semi-legends . As showing his home life in Missouri, his experiences with Quantrill's raiders and his career of banditry . As Jesse (Robert Wagner) and Frank (Jeffrey Hunter) joined the Confederate guerrillas of Quantrill and learned to kill in ruthless company . Jesse and Frank along with cousins Cole (Alan Hale Jr) , Bob and Jim Younger (Biff Elliot) return from War to find mommy (Agnes Moorehead) and family threatened by Northern people . As detective Barney Remington (Alan Baxter) was hired by the railroad company to hunt down Jesse and Frank . So James Brothers commence to robbin' banks and trains to help out the poor folks who been done wrong . In the course of their revenge , they will become the object of the biggest manhunt in the history of the Old West . Along the way , Jesse courts attractive young , filly Zee (Hope Lange) . As their fame grows, so will the legend of their leader, a young outlaw by the name of Jesse James.This is a sprawling and glamorous Western with acceptable performances from Rober Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter. The film gets spectacular shoot em'up , thrills , exciting horse pursuits ; it's entertaining , although nothing new but displays an ordinary pace and with no originality . A glimmer Western with a wild bunch look-alike that ends up into a fateful final . Packs colorful scenarios, moving pace and slick edition by means of flashbacks .Footage from the original 1939 production was used when Frank and Jesse go over a cliff on horseback into a river and when they crashed, on horseback, through a store window during the "Northfield Minnesota Raid." Features various passable acting by a popular group of today's known stars . This is a decent look about the known story of the West's greatest bandit , Jesse James , along with Frank , Cole Younger and brothers with acceptable performances and professional direction by Nicholas Ray who creates some good action scenes . As originally conceived by Walter Newman and Nicholas Ray, the film had a non-linear plot with flashbacks, but studio boss Buddy Adler couldn't understand it and forced Ray to recut it with the scenes in chronological order ; Bernstein said the recut rendered the film "pointless." Taut excitement throughout , beautifully photographed by Joseph MacDonald and with spectacular bloodletting but realized with some flaws . Atmospheric and evocative musical score by Leigh Harline . The motion picture was well realized by Nicholas Ray who displays enough off-beat touches to keep . Other films about this legendary outlaw are : The classic version (1939) titled ¨Jesse James(1939)¨ with Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda, ¨The return of Frank james(1950) by Fritz Lang with Henry Fonda ; ¨I shot Jesse James¨ by Samuel Fuller with John Ireland as Bob Ford ; and ¨Jesse James vs the Dalton(1954)¨ by William Castle with John Ireland . And contemporary-style Western such as ¨Frank and Jesse¨ by Robert Boris with Rob Lowe as Jesse James , Bill Paxton as Frank James and Randy Travis as Younger ; ¨American outlaws¨ by Les Mayfield with Colin Farrell , Gabriel Macht , Terry O'Quinn , Harris Yulin and Ali Larter ; and ¨The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford¨ (2007) by Andrew Dominik with Brad Pitt , Sam Shepard , Mary Louise Parker , Casey Affleck and Sam Rockwell. The picture was based on actual events , these are the following : At the war's end in 1865 , Jesse rode in to surrender and was shot and seriously wounded by a Union soldier . It is believed that Jesse took part in his first robbery in 1866 when a dozen men held up the bank in Liberty , Missouri . A bank cashier was killed in the raid and a reward was offered for each of the James brothers . In 1873 Jesse and his band derailed and robbed a train on the Rock Island line . Jesse married his cousin Zerelda , who bore him two children . Pinkerton detectives were contracted to chase Jesse and Frank , the agents surrounded the home , believing they to be there , tossed a bomb and the explosion killed Jesse's young half-brother . This outrage brought much sympathy for the brothers . On 1876 Jesse and Frank in company the three Younger Brothers , attempted a bank robbery at Northfield , Minnnesota , and walked in disaster . The alerted citizens opened fire on the raiders , of the eight bandits involved , three were killed and three Younger brothers were captured . On 3 April 1882 Bob Ford , a new member of the gang , treacherously shot Jesse dead in back of the head in his home at St Joseph , Missouri .

The intent of this film remains a mystery to me. Was it to portray the notorious outlaw Jesse James as sympathetic, forced into his position as a bank robber due to the atrocities of the Civil War? Or was it to show how an honest man could eventually turn into a cold-blooded killer through motivations of greed and power? Whatever the message is, it does not help that much of the film itself remains murky and mostly uninteresting. Robert Wagner has to be one of the least believable choices to play Jesse James, going more for the brooding, internally conflicted character rather than the passionate rebel. Jeffrey Hunter is adequate as brother Frank but mostly inoculate and the rest of the cast adds nothing to keep the audience interested.Hard to believe this was directed by Nicholas Ray, a director known for his quirky traits and idiosyncratic cinematic style. None of that appears here. This is a rather forgettable film that only adds to the myth of Jesse James and his band rather than attempting at all to understand him.

Fox's "The True Story Of Jesse James" (1957) is a remarkably poor widescreen remake of their prestigious 1939 Tyrone Power/Henry Fonda classic "Jesse James". I'm not sure where the fault lies but the casting in this version of the two central characters, the uneven direction of Nicholas Ray and the ham-fisted screenplay must surely have something to do with it.In the late thirties and forties Tyrone Power was Fox's top leading man but in the fifties his star began to wane and studio head Darryl Zanuck started to groom newcomer Robert Wagner to take his place. This was a major error on Zanuck's part as Wagner proved to be a less than a suitable replacement. With the possible exceptions of "Broken Lance" (1954) and "Between Heaven & Hell" (1956) it is hard to think of Wagner distinguishing himself in anything! Also, Jeffrey Hunter was nothing more than a Fox contract player before being assigned to play Frank James to Wagner's Jesse in "The True Story Of Jesse James". Borrowed from the studio the previous year this actor's one distinguishing mark was his excellent and revealing performance in John Ford's classic "The Searchers". But his playing here, along with Wagner as the second half of the James Brothers, is nothing short of boring. Neither player bring any personality or colour to their respective roles. They totally miss the mark, lacking the charisma and appeal so vividly displayed by Power and Fonda in the original. The movie is also marred by too many flashbacks and with the all over the place screenplay Wagner, as the Robin Hood of the American west, comes across as a charmless introverted twit that you can feel no empathy for whatsoever. The supporting cast are hardly worth mentioning but it is a shame to see such a great actress as Agnes Moorhead barely getting a look in as Ma James.The best aspects of this uninvolving so-so western is the wonderful Cinemascope/Colour cinematography by the great Joe McDonald and the excellent music score by the underrated and little known composer Leigh Harline!

There's not a big difference between the heroes of "Rebel without a cause" and the James bros.All are immature young people ,taking a rebel stand against the establishment (the well meaning society for Dean,Wood ,Mineo and their pals,the Yankees for these western Robin Hoods) .If the second movie is not as successful as the 1955 work (and as Ray's other "westerns " "Johnny Guitar" and "Run for cover" ) it's because the actors,with the staggering exception of Wellesian actress Agnes Moorehead,do not have great screen presence (Robert Wagner will improve with age).This is a western "a la "Citizen Kane" ,using now dying Moorehead's memories,now Lange's regrets ,now Frank's remembering what went wrong. In the poems she wrote ,Bonnie Parker alluded to the James brothers and it's obvious that Arthur Penn was certainly influenced by Ray when he directed his "Bonnie and Clyde" .(Jess's desire to have a home and to live in peace with his wife is also Clyde's)A minor work in Ray's canon,it's worth a watch though.