Product Description

Legendary fifties director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without A Cause) retells the Jesse James saga, starring Robert Wagner as the legendary bank robber. As Jesse James attempts to evade the law, those who know him best -- his brother Frank (Jeffrey Hunter), wife (Hope Lange) and mother (Agnes Moorehead) -- ponder the question, "What turned this simple farmboy to a life of lawlessness?" And as Jesse continues his ride into notoriety, the key events in his life are scrutinized in a desperate attempt to close in on him for good.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35102 in DVD
• Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
• Released on: 2007-03-06
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 92 minutes

Amazon.com
The best thing about this take on the celebrated Missouri outlaw is Nicholas Ray's dynamic use of CinemaScope, a format that left most mid-'50s directors flatfooted. Ray composes his action in slashing diagonals, over multi-leveled ground, with sectors of the wide screen defined by frames-within-the-frame and different qualities of light and color. Which is to say, he continues the radical experimentation of his 1955 James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause while attempting to develop a fresh, contemporary perspective on another violent young protagonist who's an outsider in his own society.

Nunnally Johnson's script for 20th Century-Fox's 1939 Jesse James is credited as source material, but Ray opted for a tortuous, balladlike flashback structure--beginning with the James-Younger gang's ruinous raid on Northfield, Minnesota, 400 miles from their Missouri stomping ground--that aims to deconstruct the outlaw's populist legend. "Jesse James" is an elusive subject; the Minnesota posse never sets eyes on him in the jagged first reel of the movie. How much of an Old West "Robin Hood" was he? And how murderously vengeful was his criminal career as he struck back against the railroads and their cold-blooded police force, the Pinkerton (here, "Remington") agency, and Union-sympathizer neighbors who hated this former member of the wartime guerrilla band, Quantrill's Raiders?

However radical the director's intentions, his movie runs afoul of studio recutting and an underwhelming cast of Fox contract players. Jeffrey Hunter (recently loaned out to play Ethan Edwards' companion in The Searchers) comes off best as Jesse's thoughtful brother Frank (a pattern that holds true for Henry Fonda in Jesse James and Stacy Keach in The Long Riders). But Ray was stymied by Robert Wagner as Jesse--in the phrase of Ray biographer Bernard Eisenschitz, a player "expressive of nothing but Californian physical culture." (James Dean being dead, Ray's first choice for Jesse was ... Elvis Presley!) --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews

Not very compelling
Although this version of the Jesse James story is more factual than most, it's at the expense of entertainment. Robert Wagner simply does not have the charisma that the character needs for us to believe that so many men, older than he was, were willing to follow him. Nor are any of the characters particularly well drawn, which doesn't give the actors much to do. The story is told in flashback form, starting with Northfield, but this does not seem to be to the film's advantage. The first 10 or more minutes are spent with the Northfield posse trying to track and find the gang, and because there are no characters to be invested in, it's rather dull. Later, when the flashbacks catch up to the present, we see some of the same material again. Interestingly, the screenplay credit says it's based on Nunnally Johnson's screenplay for the 1939 version with Tyrone Power. That version took a lot of liberties with the history, but is far more entertaining.

Technically, the DVD looks fine. It's a clean print, nice transfer with decent color. A trailer and a newsreel clip comprise the extras.

True Story of Jesse James

In the movie "The true Story of Jesse James, the plot is certainly following the traditions of Jesse and Frank being Robin Hoods, when in effect they may have just been Hoods Robbin for Frank and Jesse and no one else. Still it is a good movie for the time and tells much of the story about the ill fated attempt to rob the bank at Northfield Minnesota. They should have never gone into that area in the first place as it took them totally out of their land of sympathizers and into the jowls of Northern veterans and citizens, Be that as it may, I have for years tried to find out who the blind balladeer who sings at the last. The choreagraphy of that final scene with the balladeer and his aid is very story telling and a fitting end to this episode. I wish i could find this song by him in its entirety. You cannot take anything from this movie but good thoughts about all the direction and acting that went ito it. Definitely a classic and worth the money.

'As the rewards go higher, your friends grow fewer.'
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...