La ribelle del sud

This is my favorite Randolph Scott movie because it is his most romantic. He was never given the chance to get the girl. Usually in most of his movies he lost the girl or you didn't care if he won the girl. The chemistry between Randolph Scott and Gene Tierney is like a fire in a barbeque. It helps that Dana Andrews tries to confuse the situation.

Also, this movie is based on real people. In "Belle Starr", these people are exciting and beautiful. Hollywood makes historical movies that you hope are accurate but are probably not.

Gene Tierney stars as Belle Shirley, the feisty daughter of a Missouri plantation owner during the Civil War era. Her father was killed by "Yankee devils", and when her brother Ed (Shepperd Strudwick) returns home to tell her that the South has surrendered, she's devastated. Things only get worse when Yankee carpetbaggers show up, stirring up the "colored folk" and causing misery to the good, Confederacy-supporting Missourians. When Belle learns of a Confederate outlaw named Sam Starr (Randolph Scott) who is causing no end of trouble for the Union army in the area, she joins up with him, and the two fall in love. Also featuring Dana Andrews as the local Union Army commander who also has eyes for Belle.

Those with any knowledge of the real Belle Starr story will know that about the only thing this movie has in common with the real person is that they were both white females. The real story of the much-married mother of two who was also a bandit across multiple states is instead swapped for a "South will rise again!" Civil War revenge fantasy that traffics in regrettable racial stereotypes and exaggerated distortions. While the moment Randolph Scott calls Louise Beavers an "Ethiopian elephant" is bad, the recurring motif of Strudwick trying to tell jokes, even on his death bed, is worse. The film is given the sort of lavish Technicolor treatment that helped make Jesse James a hit in 1939, but that film had a better script and a better director.

That's an actual line of dialog from the script. Really.

The Belle Starr story, never actually told in the movies (partially because the real story isn't that interesting..) is told here in early Hollywood color and all the vim and vigor with which they revered the South. The plot hook is that one of the aforementioned "darkies" actually tells the fable as the narrator. Without spoiling the movie, Belle and her husband continue fighting after the War Against Treason, using those traditional Civil War Southern values of robbery, assassination, treason and protecting known criminals to keep Missouri safe for, well,the same people it was safe for before the War. Hey, it works in the movie.

The point made by vitaleralphlouis in his review is well taken. How dare we criticize Hollywood for showing how a loving mammy would help keep Belle safe, or that another "darkie" (their word, not mine) shows Belle's antagonist how disgusting he was. We all know that negroes formerly held as slaves had nothing but love for their former (or in this case present) slaveowners.

This is a classic example of a movie obviously made with care, but looked at today 99% of its viewers would wonder what was in the coffee they served at the story-pitching conference. Because even as a joke, this kind of movie could never be made again, and if there's one good thing you can say about Hollywood, that's it.

Oh, and by the way: a moment of silence for black actors like Louise Beavers who could only find work like this in her era.

"What's a legend?" a little girl asks her grandfather at the start of Belle Starr. "A legend is the best part of the truth," he answers before explaining the legend of the famed female outlaw. I love everything about this western, including the thoughtful, touching script. The scenery is great, the story is exciting (especially for those who don't know about Belle Starr), and the acting is top-notch. How many times are you going to see Randolph Scott cry in one of his westerns? I've seen fifty of his movies and only seen tears three times.

Gene Tierney is a vision, so delightful, vivacious, and beautiful it's no wonder she was a top tier actress for the next ten years. This was only her third movie, but her screen presence feels like she's a Hollywood veteran. She's wild, tough, yet remarkably feminine. When you watch her in this movie, you realize what a crying shame it was that she wasn't discovered just one year earlier to play Scarlett O'Hara. She plays a Southern belle turned outlaw in this western, angry because her family lost everything in the Civil War. Teamed up with fellow outlaw Randolph Scott, they fall in love.

Dana Andrews is a military man on a mission to catch the bandits. But as soon as he sees how beautiful Gene is, he falls for her, too! Including Louise Beavers as the "Mammy" role (since she's a superior actress than Hattie McDaniel, she could have easily been in the 1939 classic), and Shepperd Strudwick, Elizabeth Patterson, and Chill Wills in the supporting cast. I highly recommend this classic. It's not often there's a female lead in a western, and Gene Tierney is fantastic.

If anyone is expecting any true notes out of this film concerning Belle Starr they are in for a sad disappointment. One of the very few things that this film got right was that Belle Starr as befit a lady to the manor born rode side saddle. You wouldn't catch Calamity Jane doing that.

If you saw this film you would think that Belle's career ended a few years after the Civil War was over. In fact Belle's time on earth was 1848 to 1889 and in that period Belle Shirley married several times, the last being a Cherokee Indian named Sam Starr. No hint of that background in Randolph Scott, he plays the part as the real Randolph Scott was, a courtly southern gentleman from Virginia.

I don't know if Gene Tierney was in the Scarlett O'Hara sweepstakes, but in playing Belle Starr she does it in the fiddle-dee-dee tradition that Vivien Leigh did in Gone With The Wind. She's got all the men in the area ready to do and die for her and that includes Dana Andrews the Yankee major who is from Missouri also and has a real case of the hots for her. But Dana does his duty no matter how distasteful it is and Tierney's heart is only for Randolph Scott.

The real Belle was quite a bit more earthy a character and had a few children as well. One of them, a daughter became the madame of a brothel later in life. This film is entertaining with Tierney acting like Scarlett O'Hara and the plot lifted from that other Twentieth Century Fox classic about a Missouri outlaw, Jesse James.

Belle Starr will never make the top ten list of any of the cast members.