A High Quality Dime Novel of a Movie

Rating: 8/10 (30 October 2007)

After 15 years as outlaws, Frank and Jesse James were tired, beaten and worried about their futures. Without the experienced Younger Brothers, former Confederate guerrilla raiders, all captured in the Northfield, Minnesota bank robbery fiasco, the outlook for their outlaw future was bleak. Jesse grew suspicious of the uneducated stumble bum 20 year olds who helped on their last train robbery in Glendale, Missouri.
The two hour and 40 minute movie is about Jesse and five of the young fellow robbers after the Glendale train holdup. It reminded me a little of a movie of the seventies called Bad Company, which featured a number of young 20 year old men footloose on the late nineteenth century prairie. Frank just walked away from it all, moving with his wife to Virginia, leaving Jesse surrounded by nimcimpoops. One of the young men, Wood Hite, used his position as Jesse's cousin to jockey for position among the other young criminals. Wood and Dick Liddil, another of the gang, visited Wood's father and the older man's young bride in Kentucky. Liddil was already romancing Wood's sister back at a prairie home hideout in Missouri. There was bad blood between the two men. When Liddil romanced the old man's young wife in the privy late the first night after the two of them got to Kentucky, it was the last straw. Liddil went back to Missouri and holed up in an old house on the prairie until Jesse rode in and asked him to ride with him to find another gang member. When they got to the man's house, Jesse started roughing up the subteen brother of Bob and Charley Ford. Liddil stopped him. After that Liddil went to the Missouri hideout run by Wood's sister where Bob and Charley Ford were living. Hite came up the stairs with his gun drawn, to kill Liddil, who jumped out the window. Bob Ford killed Wood with one shot. He and Liddil dumped the naked body in a nearby ravine, drawing a titter from the two 70 year old ladies sitting down in front of me in the audience. The news was kept from Jesse for fear he' d kill Liddil and the two Ford Brothers. Jesse was getting more nervous about his young associates. He went to visit another fellow outlaw, Ed Miller at his lonely farm house on the plain, invited him to go to town for dinner, then shot him in the back of the head. Bob had already been talking with the Governor of Missouri about killing Jesse for a pardon and the $10,000 reward. Brother Charley was reluctantly concluding too that Jesse, ostensibly planning a bank heist for the three of them, intended to kill he and Bob when it was over.
Against this backdrop of suspicion, Jesse was telling the Ford Brothers he wanted them in on the holdup. Bob and Charley were running out of time. When Jesse got on a chair to adjust a picture, both Fords reached for their guns. Bob Ford just got his shot off first. Bob high-tailed it to the telegraph office and wired the Governor that he'd shot Jesse dead. The Fords were arrested, tried and convicted of the murder of Jesse. Just before the hanging the Governor of Missouri pardoned them and even gave them some of the $10,000 reward.
For two and a half years Bob and Charley re-enacted the killing of Jesse on Broadway, Bob playing himself, and Charley playing Jesse. 800 performances in just under two years. Afterward, Charley, never much for the theater, shot hisself to death in 1884. Bob lit out for the territories, establishing gambling joints in the gold fields of Colorado, making alliances with corrupt lawmen and organized gamblers. After Jesse's death, Bob thought people would consider him a hero. They didn't. He visited the wives of many of the men Jesse had killed, expecting to be thanked. He wasn't. Gradually he realized his dime novel sense of things had been juvenile. He started to grow up some. But a disgruntled old man angry over Ford's traitorous murder of the sainted Jesse, shot Bob to death with a shotgun in the gambling tent Bob had erected temporarily in Creeg, Colorado.
There was no dime novels for Bob Ford or Robin Hood legends neither.
Frank James turned himself in personally to Governor Crittenden of Missouri not long after Jesse was killed. A deal had been cut to prevent his extradition to Northfield, Minnesota. Frank stood trial in Missouri and Alabama. Due to the Robin Hood legacy of the James Brothers, no jury would convict him. Frank took a job as a shoe salesman and later worked at a St. Louis theater which advertised "come get your ticket punched by Frank James!" He worked as an AT&T Telegraph operator. In 1902, he and Cole Younger, now out of jail, took to the lecture circuit together. Frank lived until 1915, long enough that he could have been a technical adviser on a western film. However, they didn't make the first silent about Jesse and he until 1921.
Though Brad Pitt plays Jesse and the much older Sam Shepherd plays Frank in this ensemble movie, the best performance among many very good ones, belongs to Casey Affleck, the second great performance I've seen from him in two weeks. The story is told in dialog much like that in the dime novels. People are perpetually puzzled, joking and weird like they appear in dime novels. The childishness of the younger gang members dominates the screenplay. This artsy film will probably be nominated for Oscars. Affleck will be nominated for a best supporting actor if he's not nominated best actor for Gone Baby Gone. The films 160 minutes glided by without notice because the film was continually interesting. It will certainly be nominated for best director and best picture.