Jesse James

Jesse James (1939) is an old-fashioned Western, for better or worse. An expensive Twentieth Century Fox film, it's beautifully shot and packed with top talent. But its hackneyed plotting and conventionality fail to distinguish it from your average programmer.

Jesse James (Tyrone Power) and brother Frank (Henry Fonda) are Missouri farm boys who run afoul of railroad thug Barshee (Brian Donlevy). After Barshee accidentally kills Jesse's mother (Jane Darwell) Jesse seeks revenge, precipitating a legendary outlaw career. Jesse accepts the offer of an honest US Marshal (Randolph Scott) to turn himself in for a lenient sentence, but railroad boss McCoy (Donald Meek) rigs his trial. When Jesse escapes he goes on a national crime spree, leaving his long-suffering wife Zee (Nancy Kelly) behind. Meanwhile gang member Bob Ford (John Carradine) is busy eying reward posters...

Jesse James casts its outlaw hero as a wronged innocent pushed into crime by evil, bullying railroad men. He's not quite Robin Hood but his noble intentions are never in doubt, an ideal hero for moviegoers not five years removed from John Dillinger's exploits. Unfortunately, King and writer Nunnaly Johnson present their story in the broadest strokes, its heroes so squeaky clean you could eat off them. A dose of droopy melodrama between shootouts doesn't help either. No genre's more archetypical than the Western, but Jesse James takes it to extremes.

King makes fine use of vivid Technicolor and Pineville, Missouri locations; if nothing else Jesse James is quite handsome. The movie's best with physical action, King crafting inventive set pieces: Frank and Jesse distracting a posse with hastily-thrown bank notes, and later riding horses through a shop window (an image appropriated by Walter Hill's The Long Riders). A horse died in a horrifying cliff-diving stunt. But the movie drags between action scenes, full of stilted dialogue and cornball comic relief. King's later Westerns (especially The Gunfighter) hold up much better.

Tyrone Power makes a charismatic Jesse, transitioning from naive farm boy to killer fairly well. It's strange seeing Henry Fonda and Randolph Scott as second bananas; to think Fonda starred in Drums Along the Mohawk and Young Mr. Lincoln the same year! Much better are Brian Donlevy (Hangmen Also Die!) and John Carradine as second-tier dastards. Nancy Kelly is a thoroughly uninspiring love interest and Henry Hull's clowning grows old fast.

Jesse James is watchable but not a genre highpoint. Fritz Lang's sequel The Return of Frank James (1940) surpasses it in most every way. It certainly can't hold a candle to Stagecoach or Destry Rides Again, 1939's Western champs.