FightingWesterner
With an amnesty vote pending in the Missouri legislature, a last attempt to nab the James-Younger gang leaves Cole Younger (Cliff Robertson) gravely wounded, prompting Jesse James (Robert Duvall) to try his luck at a lucrative out-of-state bank job, leaving Cole worried about his amnesty and hot on his trail.Indicative of Hollywood in the early seventies, this is slick, glib entertainment that takes a few shots at the establishment, though writer/director Philip Kaufman manages to do so without becoming smug and self-righteous (Robert Altman cough, cough), while remaining amusing and clever throughout and delivering a few good action scenes.Robertson (who also produced) portrays Younger as the real brains of the gang and plays him with a grin and a twinkle in his eye, while Duvall's Jesse is half-crazed and ignorant, though with a quick wit and a devil-may-care attitude that brings to mind his characters in Joe Kidd and Apocalypse Now.Great character actors like R.G. Armstrong, Royal Dano and Elisha Cook Jr. are always a welcome sight, while Luke Askew (who's third-billed despite never uttering a word!) went on to play a pivotal role in Frank And Jesse, another Jesse James movie a couple decades later.
tieman64
There have been numerous films about Jesse James, most notably Sam Fuller's "I Shot Jesse James", Nick Ray's "The True Story of Jesse James", Kaufman's "The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid", Hill's "The Long Riders" and Dominik's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford".Being the most recent, Dominik's film gets all the attention, but Kaufman's and Hill's deserve just as much notice. Though released in the 1970s, Kaufman's film must be watched through the lens of his astronaut epic, "The Right Stuff", both films offering an absurdist take on progress and frontier pushing. Here, Jesse is a confused charlatan and the gang's criminality is seen as being outdated in the face of banking cartels, protection rackets and business scams. In this new world, the business man is the new criminal, violence now taking the form of organised sports, rail barons and profit margins. "How much you think that'll fetch?" one man remarks, as he tries to figure out whether he can make more profits selling earrings in pairs or singles. Stuffed dolls are similarly traded for money, whilst steam engines and horseless buggies are treated as, not a form of technological progress, but a form of capitalist spectacle which pushes Jesse and his gang further and further into extinction. Indeed, it is a steam piano constructed to attract people to a bank, which ultimately gets Jesse's gang killed.The gang itself is split into two groups. Those who follow Cole Younger and those who follow Jesse James. Jesse embodies a kind of no-nonsense criminal psychopathy, stealing and killing and forever unable to live up to his romantic myth (he pretends to receive messages from God, but nobody believes him). Cole, in contrast, tries to play the game by the banks' rules, using guile, cunning and elaborate schemes. Significantly, Cole's plan backfires and he dies, whilst the lawless Jesse, a product of a different age, rides comically off into the sunset. Like Altman's "Thieves Like Us", the film subversively portrays its gangs, not as noble Robin Hoods stealing from corporate fat cats, but part of the same all inclusive racket.Walter Hill's "The Long Riders" is a different sort of beast altogether. This is a fast paced action movie, the "legendary moments" in the life of Jesse James downplayed in favour for ambiance and texture. Town dances, chirping crickets, women being pushed on swings, touching romantic relationships with whores...this is film which serves up a certain air of melancholy, before launching into a series of staggeringly violent action set pieces. Hill's gangsters are not wild-eyed maniacs but disenfranchised criminals looking to score easy cash so that they can retire to some country paradise. In other words, it's a Michael Mann macho poem with the violence of Walter Hill's mentor, Sam Peckinpah, grafted on.Hill's film also revolves around a cat and mouse feud between Jesse and the Pinkerton Detective Agency, a group of lawmen working for the banks and railroads. In an effort to humanise the gang, the film paints these lawmen as murderous brutes who kill innocents and set homes ablaze. These, of course, are narrative tactics used to convince us that Jesse and his boys are innocent of any wrong doings and that they were merely provoked by violent authorities. Andrew Dominik's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", in contrast, is implicitly about celebrity. Here, Jesse's gang are mythologized through legend and media exposure, and it is this which curses them. Jesse himself is killed, not by Robert Ford, but by celebrity itself. The film is thus about, not only looking, but being looked down upon, looked up at, and having perceptions projected upon you. Jesse's death, in which looking at a picture literally kills him, encapsulates all these themes. It is Jesse's own gaze, his aloof attitude toward Ford, which causes Ford's worshipful stare to be corrupted, but more importantly, co-oped by Pinkerton. Here, celebrity and mythology bulldoze truths, and court death by assuming a kind of superiority. Of course death, rather than debunking myths, tends to reinforce them further.But while all three films go off on their own interesting tangents, they make a mistake which has been around since Henry Fonda's 1939 film, "Jesse James". These films ignore history and turn Jesse in a superstar, a Robin Hood, a pretty boy rogue, when this image was wholly invented by John Edwards, a racist and pro Confederate journalist who wanted to create a heroic figure to help rally people against the Union.At the time, the state of Missouri belonged to the Confederates, whereas the state of Kansas was held by the Union. The two states fought each other fiercely, killing civilians, burning houses and committing various other war crimes. Jesse James, following in his brother's footsteps, joined the Confederates, fought with them for several years and then left the army to form a robbery gang with several soldiers. They hit trains and banks and kept the loot, but because banks and railroads were symbols of the Union States (who were forcing farmers, civilians etc to buy Federal dollars), it became easy for Confederate supporters to turn Jesse into a kind of rebel figure.Jesse then began to milk this image, selling himself as an altruistic warrior who fought evil Yankee rail barons for Southern honour. In reality, far from being the last hurrah of the Confederate cause, Jesse was a cold hearted guy who fought for the preservation of slavery, robbed trains dressed as the KKK and kept all the loot for him and his gang. Of course none of the Jesse James films deal with this, even Dominik's, which is specifically about the allure and falsity of celebrity.7.9/10 - Interesting.
Calcman
Being a historian and a fan of great movies, I can overlook historical discretions when it comes to every detail exactly as it was, as long as the film isn't saturated in political correctness. The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid is a great movie, and from what I've researched, not that inaccurate. Cliff Robertson (Cole Younger) is the star, more so that Bob Duval (Jesse James), and that's OK, because it is a movie. I remember taking a beautiful girl to see "The Long Riders" in 1980, and I remember not really caring for it. Looking back, I know why. They just don't make them like they used to. Robertson, Duval and the gang in TGNMR look tough, tattered, their clothes worn and dirty, their beards real and not clipped to perfection. Their voices are those of men, not boys. There is no way in hell I will waste time seeing Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise try to convince anyone they are Jesse James. Even Kurt Russell, who I like, with that phony curled mustache in one of the Jesse James remakes can't convince me that he is anyone but a Disney actor with soft skin. From a historical perspective, this movie may get you interested in researching Jesse James, the War for Southern Independence, and that era. My buddies and I traveled to Minnesota for The Final Four and ventured over to Northfield for a day and rode the trail of the outlaws. We arrived at the bank, the same bank, at closing time. The lady was locking up and she refused to let us look inside. If only I had my 45 we could have re-lived that infamous day. My favorite part in this movie is at the whorehouse (Mankaty Kate's), where the boys are all dead tired, sleeping, snoring, but Cole is never completely asleep. His eyes are half open, then shut, then half open again, while there seems to be a slight wheezing sound. In the background is very mellow, eerie but nice soft chamber-like music. The music, along with Cole's state of mind and physical condition, all on screen together, make for a fantastic if but somber scene. Check out Inger Stratten as one of the whores with the sweetest voice. If you've ever been so dog-dead tired and gone through hell, you can relate to this moment. It is abruptly interrupted by gunfire. It's a good thing Cole never sleeps and wears a steel chest guard. There is a grim determination in each of these boys, being anti-union, refusing to surrender and knowing that each day could be their last. You have to think that if you were one of the boys, would you do the things they are doing in this movie and would you see things as they see them. My answer is "yes".
