The True Story of Jesse James

20th Century-Fox and screenwriter Nunnaly Johnson's belated follow-up to their high-spirited and excellent 1939 smash hit JESSE JAMES has returned on DVD to annoy and bore another generation.

The 1957 True Story of Jesse James isn't such a bad movie, but it's inferior in every way to the 1939 movie as well as the 1940 sequel Return of Frank James. Also, the "true story" is no more historically factual than the revisionist history original. Just do a Google search and see what I mean.

Robert Wagoner and Jeffery Hunter were the pretty boys of 1957 but can't hold a candle to the excellent portrayals of Frank and Jesse by Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda. Screenwriter Nunnally Johnson wrote both, but was obviously more fired-up with inspiration in 1939, as that film had nary a dull 5 seconds. It was brilliantly staffed with one rich characterization after another, good guys as well as bad. Even the Technicolor was better in the original. They used 3-strip Technicolor and those cameras which were 1/2 the size of a Pontiac --- to produce a brilliantly rich color still unmatched in 2007.

The 1939 Jesse James was the obvious inspiration for 1972's great hit, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The 1957 version inspired only a Z-session.

Every re-telling of the Jesse James story has been flawed. This picture has neither the carelessly cobbled script of "The Long Riders" nor the Robert Duvall version's annoying quirkiness and skewed morality. However, it is a highly selective narrative omitting much of the suffering caused by the Jameses and with several outright distortions of the historical record. For example, when he was shot by Robert Ford, Jesse James was in the process of assembling a new gang, not about to retire to the life of a farmer as depicted here.

Robert Wagner is appropriately youthful in the title role. As brother Frank, the impossibly handsome Jeffrey Hunter has little to do but acts well. Agnes Moorehead plays Mrs. Samuel, the matriarch, as too saintly for my taste. But portraying a media-savvy Cole Younger, Alan Hale leads a particularly able supporting cast including, as an honorable Union soldier, the father of contemporary star Kurt Russell.

The narrative is anchored to the disastrous expedition to Northfield, Minnesota. One nice touch, copied in a later retelling, was the inclusion of a Swedish-speaking actor to play one of the two town residents killed by the gang.

The intent of this film remains a mystery to me. Was it to portray the notorious outlaw Jesse James as sympathetic, forced into his position as a bank robber due to the atrocities of the Civil War? Or was it to show how an honest man could eventually turn into a cold-blooded killer through motivations of greed and power?

Whatever the message is, it does not help that much of the film itself remains murky and mostly uninteresting. Robert Wagner has to be one of the least believable choices to play Jesse James, going more for the brooding, internally conflicted character rather than the passionate rebel. Jeffrey Hunter is adequate as brother Frank but mostly inoculate and the rest of the cast adds nothing to keep the audience interested.

Hard to believe this was directed by Nicholas Ray, a director known for his quirky traits and idiosyncratic cinematic style. None of that appears here. This is a rather forgettable film that only adds to the myth of Jesse James and his band rather than attempting at all to understand him.

As an actor, Robert Wagner has shown remarkable staying power, especially when one considers that his success in the cinema was effected almost entirely through his dark, boyish good looks…

In "The True Story of Jesse James", Robert Wagner (Jesse) is proud of his name… His name means something, especially when those Yankee bankers hear it, they start shaking… Jesse James was the shooting spokesman for everyone whose life was quietly desperate… To ones, he was a thief… To others he was already becoming a legend, one that kindles a fire in their hearts…

Jesse has planned the very last robbery perfectly to make enough money to retire on… But in spite that he never struck a bank in Northfield, the Minnesota banks were anxiously waiting for him… So something went wrong…

Mrs. Samuel (Agnes Moorehead) recalls the past… The Yankees came riding down on her farm, and her neighbors dragged her out of the kitchen… Her elder son Frank (Jeffrey Hunter) was fighting for the South… The State of Missouri has taken sides with the North… Any man from this state who joins the South was considered a traitor…

For Zee (Hope Lange), Jesse had a dream for the future… But that night, his neighbors, who were Northern sympathizers, broke his reverie…

All begins when the war has sapped the two brothers and their friends bone-dry… Every bank in the state of Missouri was owned by a Yankee man who hates their hide and wants them to get out… Those banks have got a lot of Northern money rolling in… Jesse wanted one or two robberies to get enough money to leave for his mother, for his sweetheart, for protecting the farm… But then he becomes addicted to the exciting life of robbing banks and trains…

The film—well paced by director Nicholas Ray—was beautifully acted by all its stars

Not quite big enough to be an "A" movie, not quite small enough to qualify as a "B" movie, this version of the Jesse James story is too indecisive in its attitude toward its central character to have much impact. The Jesse depicted here is neither good nor bad, and the same thing could be said about the movie itself.

It is a very good-looking movie, though it's completely out of touch with the times it's meant to portray. Every set, every costume, every hair-do says "Hollywood 1950s" rather than "Missouri 1870s."

Robert Wagner seems too clean-cut to be a frontier outlaw but 20th Century-Fox was trying to push him toward stardom at the time, making use of his "hunk" appeal. He's thus given a few bare-chest scenes. Jeffrey Hunter, another would-be star, fits more easily into the western milieu as Jesse's brother, but his part has clearly been subordinated to keep the attention on the Jesse James character. One wonders how the movie might have been improved had these two actors exchanged roles.

Agnes Moorehead and John Carradine lend interest to a better-than-average supporting cast.