Yo maté a Jesse James

it reminds the Biblical stories. or damned characters of Dostoievski.in fact, it is an inspired western, proposing a hero, a coward mate and the fall of dreams, a show as remind of guilt and the public contempt. a film who did not demonstrate anything. only gives a large picture about gestures and fragile and obscure border between bad and good. and this transforms "I Shot Jesse James" more than a B western but a demonstration about values and expectations and illusion and friendship. the noble Jesse James and the knavish Ford. a story with moral veil who remains nice demonstration about limits and falls.

I think this movie is more about Robert Ford than say Jesse James. John Ireland does a great job as the cowardly Bob Ford.. the James gang just having finished another robbery is on the run hiding out somewhere in Missouri,, Jesse is living under an alias. One thing that this movie presented to me was that the James' somehow are related to the Younger's and the Dalton's interesting fact if its' true. With that price of 10,000 on Jesse's head it becomes almost impossible for Bob Ford to resist it,, he plans on getting a house in the country and marrying his sweetheart Cynthy,, so he figures to cash in on his friend Jesse's head dead or alive,, what he doesn't count on is 2 things,, first being the public outcry of Jesse's death,, also the shrinking of the reward money,, and secondly how Cynthy would react,, he figures she'd be happy so that they could get married and so on.. wrong ,,, she has a conscious, and starts to despise Bob,, and at best pity him. this is a pretty good telling of the story of Jesse getting shot by Bob.

Sam Fuller's first film direction is a version of what happened to Robert Ford (John Ireland), the man who famously killed his friend - Jesse James (Reed Hadley).

Taking up the basic elements of the real life story, Fuller keeps the narrative tight whilst ensuring the complexities of the main characters come to the fore. All the quirks and peccadilloes of the human condition are explored (the detail of Ford's torments and troubles superbly told), which is something of a rarity for a late 1940s "B" standard Western. The use of close-ups are to purposely highlight the psychological discord on show, marking this out as a good pointer to the later work of its maverick director. Ernest Hiller photographs the exteriors out of Iverson Ranch in Chatsworth and support to Ireland comes from Preston Foster, Barbara Britton and J. Edward Bromberg. 7/10

I Shot Jesse James (1949)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fuller's directorial debut takes a look at the life of Bob Ford (John Ireland) after his cowardly killing of Jesse James. Ford is in love with a woman (Barbara Britton) but goes out West to try and make some money but what he doesn't know is that she's in love with another man (Preston Foster). The story of Jesse James in Hollywood has always been an interesting one because a lot of movies look at him as some sort of good guy when in truth he was pure scum who killed women and children. How this guy ever got to be looked at as a hero is beyond me but it's probably the same way Ford became a coward. People have debated on what Ford was but there's no question this Fuller film shows him as a weak coward and it even changes the ending of history to make him go out in a different way. This is technically a very well made film but at the same time there are quite a few problems with the screenplay. For starters, the movie seems to be hit and miss in regards to what it's trying to say. I didn't care too much for the way James was shown because they made him look and sound like one would expect Abraham Lincoln to come off. I'm not sure why they built Jesse up so highly just to change things around on Ford. The film seems to want to show Ford for a coward yet the screenplay goes off in different directions as to center on other aspects of his life and it's the later stuff that makes the film swing off track for me. With that said, the amount of talent on display here by Fuller can't be questioned. The visual style of the film is wonderful and he handles the action quite well. The psychological stuff comes off pretty well especially the scene right after the murder when Ford enters a bar only to have people looking at him differently than he expected. Ireland is very good in his role as is Foster. The two men work extremely well together and make the film worth seeing. There are many, many film dealing with this subject and while this one here isn't the best, there's still enough here making it worth checking out.

This is Samuel Fuller's first effort;it is a western and it's got something bizarre,something unusual which we find in every work of this director,whatever he films :films noirs ("underworld USA" ),melodramas ("the naked kiss" ) ,thrillers verging on horror ("shock corridor" ) or westerns ("run of the arrow" and "forty guns").

They say that Fuller approved of Robert Ford's attitude.But his movie is not so simple.It seems that Jesse really WANTS to be killed ;we might take the lines "what are you waiting for?here's my back " literally.

Once Robert Ford has taken the plunge ,his fate is sealed;there's no coming back,no hope for the life he dreams of with his gorgeous girl.Anyway,Cynthy's love has turned to despise at worst ,pity at best.

The scene on the stage is some kind of mirror ,where Ford fully realizes what he has done -a scene which contains an unusual inventive use of the flashback-,as is the folk singer who performs his "ballad of Robert Ford": when he sings his last verse ,he may be frightened,but it's Cain's eye all over again.

I do not have to kill you,Jesse's brother says ,you're already dead.