Jesse James (1939)

Director:

Henry King

Writer:

Nunnally Johnson (original screenplay)

Release Date:

27 January 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama | Romance | Western

Tagline:

The Epic Story of the most Colourful Outlaw who ever lived

Plot:

After railroad agents forcibly evict the James family from their family farm, Jesse and Frank turn to banditry for revenge.

Plot Keywords:

Railroad | Bank | Train | Reward | Farmer

Cast

Tyrone Power	...	Jesse Woodson James
Henry Fonda	...	Frank James
Nancy Kelly	...	Zerelda 'Zee' Cobb, later Zerelda 'Zee' James
Randolph Scott	...	Marshall Will Wright
Henry Hull	...	Major Rufus Cobb
Slim Summerville	...	Jailer
J. Edward Bromberg	...	Mr. Runyan
Brian Donlevy	...	Barshee
John Carradine	...	Bob Ford
Donald Meek	...	Mc Coy
Johnny Russell	...	Jesse James Jr. (as John Russell)
Jane Darwell	...	Mrs. Samuels - Jesse's mother
Charles Tannen	...	Charles Ford
Claire Du Brey	...	Mrs. Bob Ford
Willard Robertson	...	Clarke

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

West Germany:12 (f) | Norway:16 | Australia:G | Finland:K-16 | Spain:13 | UK:U | USA:Approved (certificate #4590) | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Lake Ozark, Missouri, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

After the two horses that were blindfolded and forced to go over a cliff were killed, a new rule was enforced and later endorsed by The Humane Society of America in which strict standards were created to protect Animal Actors in which at the end of the movie and added to the credits listed as "No Animals Were Harmed or Injured in the Production of this Film...". Now all films involving any Animal Actors must have present a member representing The Humane Society of America to insure that all animals are treated humanly and given a safe environment in which to work.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: After they get Jesse out of jail, in the head-on shot of Frank and Jesse riding while being chased by the posse, road dust from the camera truck is visible ahead of them.

Quotes:

[last lines]
[about Jesse James]
Major Rufus Cobb: He was one of the doggonedest, gawl-dingedest, dad-blamedest buckaroos that ever rode across these United States of America!

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Magkapatid na Jesse at James (1965)

Soundtrack:

The Battle Cry of Freedom

A highly romanticized account of the infamous desperado…

Splendid in his first Western and his first Technicolor movie, Power portrayed Jesse James as a sympathetic hero and the most charming bank robber of the Old West…

Teamed with Henry Fonda, and stalwart Randolph Scott, Henry King came with a Western classic, considered as one the best Jesse James of the series…

The film opens in Pineville with hothead Jesse and temperate Frank as a couple of Missouri brothers who, embittered by the ruthless tactics of a railroad agent, got a warrant and had to skip out, hiding out until Major Rufus Cobb (Henry Hull) can get the governor to give them a fair trial … But the railroad's got too much at stake to let two farmer boys bollix things up…

After they had thrown Barshee (Brian Donlevy), the brutal railroad representative off the farm of their widowed mother (Jane Darwell) when she refused to sign over her property, Jesse and Frank later learn that she had been killed by a bomb tossed into their home by Barshee himself… Jesse returns, shoots Barshee, and vows revenge on the railroad, with the complete sympathy of the Missouri populace…

Jesse's sweetheart, Zee and her uncle, publisher Major Rufus, are among the James' supporters, as is U. S. Marshal Will Wright (Scott), but he has a job to do and is forced to track down the two brothers…

Jesse and Frank have expanded their operation from merely harassing the St. Louis Midland with a series of holdups to robbing banks…

Pursuaded by railroad president McCoy (Donald Meek) to talk Jesse into surrendering, Wright extracts a written promise of a light sentence for the desperado… Zee then urges Jesse to give himself up following their wedding…

Of course, Henry King tries to show how Jesse hated the railroads and from that hate he presented a charismatic hero… But this hero was not going to last… The more luck he had, the worse he gets… It'll be his appetite for shooting and robbing until something happens to him…

He also shows a worried fiancée keeping thinking of an outlaw all the time out there in the hills just going on and on to nowhere just trying to keep alive with everybody after him, wanting to kill him to get that money…

There's a scene near the end where Zee (Nancy Kelly) after delivering her baby is lying in bed with her creature, with the presence of the Marshal, so to speak, between herself and her uncle that suddenly made clear to me what the entire film was about… Her feelings as a woman: "I'm so tired to care. This is the way it always is. We live like animals, scared animals. We move. We hide. We don't dare to go out… "

Obviously she is a sensitive woman who exposes her being on screen without losing sight of reality… That's quite a great scene from King, and key in this great Western, as it's really all about her character, Zee Cobb, a struggling woman in love now a mother with a baby to take care of…

So please don't miss it!