I Shot Jesse James

I Shot Jesse James (1949) is the debut film of Samuel Fuller, a pulp writer-turned-filmmaker best-remembered for his gritty war movies: The Steel Helmet, Fixed Bayonets!, The Big Red One. His first directoral effort is a decent enough B Western, exploring territory covered more recently in The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford (2007) in its examination of a neurotic, guilt-ridden gunslinger.

Bob Ford (John Ireland) is a two-bit outlaw working with Jesse James (Reed Hadley). While planning a new job with Jesse, Bob hears that the Governor of Missouri is offering a pardon for any member of James's gang that turns him in - dead or alive. Hoping to marry sweetheart Cynthy (Barbara Britton) with the reward money, Bob decides to kill Jesse, gaining infamy in the process. Consumed by guilt and hounded by would-be gunslingers, Bob flees West, striking it rich in a Colorado silver mine. When Cynthy arrives, however, Bob finds that she still retains affections for an old flame: mine boss Kelley (Preston Foster), now the local Marshal.

I Shot Jesse James is an uneven film. When the movie focuses on Bob and his guilt, it works: his re-enacting the assassination on stage, forcing a troubador (Robin Short) to sing about his "cowardice," and facing off against a teenaged fame-seeker are all powerful sequences, helped by Fuller's fine direction and Ernest Miller's nice black-and-white photography. But this angle is underdeveloped, with Fuller focusing instead on a trite, cliched love triangle. The movie reaches a corny denouement, with Kelley deferring a showdown by turning his back to Ford. Even at 82 minutes it feels a bit padded, with characters and subplots introduced and dropped as convenient.

John Ireland (Red River) is excellent in a rare lead role. Often a stiff supporting actor, he does a fine job portraying Bob as neurotic, well-intentioned but none-too-bright, and just likeable enough to be tragic. The rest of the cast is non-descript: Preston Foster is fine, but Barbara Britton, Reed Hadley and Tommy Noonan are thoroughly one-dimensional.

I Shot Jesse James isn't a bad debut for Fuller, but neither is it anything special. It gives the impression that somewhere in the story, a great movie is bursting to get out. Fifty-nine years later, Andrew Dominik would find it.