A couple of southern theatre exhibitors decided they could make a western (or, in this case, a Southeastern) just as bad as the worse of those coming from Hollywood and proceeded to prove they could be not only as bad, they could be much worse. They ensured their success at obtaining this goal by hiring Don Barry as the director. Barry was the best choice, as only the egotistical-and-sad Barry could direct (or believe) a film in which he starred as a lady-killer whose charms women could not resist.(The Susan Hayward real-life swimming-pool incident not withstanding.) Jesse James (Don Barry), leaves Missouri for Mississippi, and immediately charms all the women in the cast out of their bloomers and garters, even though three of them towered over him. His first conquest is the banker's daughter who helps him loot the bank in exchange for a promise of marriage; he wanders over to the saloon and runs the crooked partner of the proprietress out of town, takes all of his-and-her money and leaves her, between kisses, hounding him for her share; the third one, the saloon singer, actually makes a mark out of him as she cons him into a boxing match against a professional fighter and he loses the fight and his money, but he holds the singer and the fighter up as they leave town and gets his money back; and then he romances and swindles Cattle Kate, a replay of what he had done somewhere before to Kate and the "gotcha-again" Kate even ends up behind bars. But no film that contains a cat-fight between Peggie Castle and Lita Baron can be called a complete waste of time
