The Return of Frank James

After the success of Jesse James (1939), 20th Century Fox tapped German emigre Fritz Lang to direct a sequel. The Return of Frank James (1940) is miles better than the original, replacing Henry King's mythic hokum with solid storytelling.

Frank James (Henry Fonda) is living incognito when he learns of Jesse's assassination. After hearing that the killers, Bob (John Carradine) and Charlie Ford (Charles Tannen), are pardoned for the crime, Frank and sidekick Clem (Jackie Coogan) track the crooks to Denver, robbing a mail station. But Frank's railroad nemesis (Donald Meek) still wants Frank dead, laying a trap by arresting servant Pinky (Ernest Whitman) and framing Frank for murder. Now Frank's on trial for his life, and it's up to reporter Eleanor (Gene Tierney) to save him.

The Return of Frank James appears a standard revenge plot. But Lang and writer Sam Hellman's clever film making keeps the familiar story fresh. It's a remarkably brisk movie, with lots of action and changes of scenery, slowing only for Frank's trial in the third act. Lang engineers several clever set-pieces, most with a strange edge: a horse chase culminating in a cliff-side shootout, a railroad detective bound in a closet. The trial scenes are amusing, with Lang highlighting Major Cobb's (Henry Hull) Confederate past that provides much courtroom tension. This clever craftsmanship makes Frank James more than just a programmer.

Lang spotlights Western mythmaking. Eleanor represents this most overtly, but her character proves inconsistent. She starts off as an Old West Hildy Johnson, but her flightiness in the second half almost justifies her father's chauvinism. More effective are the characters' self-conscious role playing: first Clem reenacting Frank's alleged death, then Bob Ford replaying his slaying of Jesse onstage. Thanks to the press Frank can't escape his outlaw image, either; it's all too easy for the jury to believe he killed an innocent man.

Henry Fonda mixes his usual charm with a nice undercurrent of menace. Jackie Coogan makes a good sidekick but Gene Tierney (in her screen debut) seems rather flaky. John Carradine, Donald Meek, Henry Hull, J. Edward Bromberg and Ernest Whitman all reprise their roles from Jesse James; Hull gets the meatiest role, his hammy courtroom antics expunging his embarrassing turn in the original.

The Return of Frank James is a Class A Western. At heart it's a generic oater, but Lang's skillful presentation wins out.