Frank e Jesse

First of all, let me agree with the reviewer from Kansas City that if you want a historically accurate film about the James brother see "The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Bob Ford" based on the book by Rob Hanson. All other Jesse James movies are terribly inaccurate and misleading.

At the end of "Frank & Jesse" is the disclaimer: "This motion picture is based upon actual events. However, some of the characters and incidents portrayed and many of the names used herein are fictitious; any similarity of such character, incident, or name, to the name, characters or history of any person, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintentional."

Many of the events never happened. For example, Pinkerton and Jesse were never known to be in the same place at the same time The hilarious bathhouse romp and the shooting at the ferry involving the wives, Anne and Zee, resp. give a whole new meaning to "Mollification".

Then there's the legend of the widow's mortgage. It's also attributed to Jesse's contemporary, Billy the Kid, as well as to Dick Turpin much earlier. The usual story has the outlaws repaying the widow's hospitality with cash for the mortgage and then waylaying the collector to retrieve the payment. The version in the movie is botched. A receipt is not obtained and the outlaws back off.

Some of the incidents are time shifted to earlier dates to create more sympathy for the outlaws. Their step-father was harassed, but not killed, to try to find out where Frank and the border ruffians were hiding. The revenge fire bombing, which killed their young half-brother and severely wounded their mother, occurred nine years after the war and well after the gang had robbed several banks and trains and killed many innocent people. Clemency was never granted because of these deeds and their participation in atrocities under Quantrill and "Bloody" Bill Anderson.

Most of the names used in the movie belong to actual people – but are often used incorrectly. As pointed out in earlier reviews Archie Clements died during the war. And the roles of the Fords are twisted. Was that deliberate to warn us that the details of the assassination were also being twisted to make Jesse appear to be more noble than he was?

But on to the event with which I'm most familiar, viz. the attempted robbery of the Northfield bank. Please see the Wikipedia account which is as accurate as any. There were eight in the gang – Frank and Jesse; Cole, Bob and Jim Younger; as well as Charlie Pitts, Clel Miller and Bill Chadwell. The movie has six - Frank, Jesse, Cole and Bob, and also John Younger and Archie Clements, both of whom had been dead for some time. In fact, they were armed with four to six revolvers each which they wore under their dusters, but no rifles.

There was no conspiracy. At least three movies have a conspiracy. Had there been one the defenders would have been better prepared. However, almost as soon as the raid began the locals were alerted and picked up two civil war single-shot rifles and several "fowling pieces" loaded with bird shot. Despite the fact that they are great movie clichés, nobody and no horses crashed through windows and nobody was up on the roof so they could get shot off the roof falling forward into the street. The defenders did out shoot the professionals; Miller and Chadwell received fatal wounds from the rifles. Two locals were killed – one of the bank clerks and a recent Swedish immigrant, deaths attributed to a James and Cole, resp. Both victims were unarmed.

Beside clichés we have stereotyping in the movie. Minnesota = cold; right. Snow on the ground in early September? That's two months early. And fresh ice in the ice house three months early. O'Malley Saloon and the Oslo Theatre? No way; the town was owned by Yankees from New England. Although Scandinavians and a few Irish had started to arrive they hadn't yet worked their way onto Division Street.

Posses were formed after the raid, but the James brothers were able to steal a succession of fresh mounts and rode through Dakota Territory and disappeared for three years, mainly in Nashville. Cole stayed behind to care for his brothers who were more seriously wounded. In a shoot out at Hanska Slough, seven members of a posse flushed the gang out of hiding and out shot them. Pitts was killed. The Younger brothers were captured, confessed and were imprisoned.

The movie does scratch the surface to the question "Why was Jesse the way he was?". A greater question is "Why do we try to make heroes out of murderers?" The problem with movies like "Frank & Jesse" is that they perpetuate the myth that they were some kind of Robin Hoods. If you're looking for heroes consider Joseph Lee Heywood, the acting cashier who gave his life protecting the city, and Northfield citizens A. R. Manning and Henry Wheeler and the seven members of the Madelia posse who put the end to the gang of notorious cutthroats.

As much as I keep hearing the mantra on here that the historical inaccuracies are forgiven if it is a good movie. Well, it is extremely inaccurate and it is not a good movie.

If you would like to make a western and ignore the majority of the facts, go ahead, just change the names of the characters and there will be no problem. Maybe it is because I live in the area that this movie is located, but it makes me cringe when I see Jessie's home as a two story mansion in St. Joseph when I have toured the actual home many times and the house is no bigger than my living room. The Northfield raid was horrendous with more inaccuracies and contrived stunts that seemed to be added to the movie just because they were filmed.

The acting was bad with Lowe looking like a glamor shots version of Jessie and Paxton alternating between playing Frank James as Frank James and Frank James as Doc Holiday. I give this movie a 5 just because it is a western and it could be a serviceable story if they would have just changed the names.

All in all, there were many times I was just itching to reach up and grab my 'The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Bob Ford' DVD and throw it in, but I waited to watch all of 'Frank & Jessie'. If you have the choice, just watch 'Assassination' again (which was extremely accurate and well written and acted), and you'll be better for it.

But other than getting the names correct this movie totally ignore history. The Northfield portion was ridicules. They didn't plan to be in Northfield, it was a backup bank. The Pinkerton's weren't there. Heck the fact is Jesse and Frank probably weren't even there. It shows Cole riding off after shooting his brother. He was shot over 50 times and Northfield, and 90 times in his life. He then went to prison and was released in the early 1900's He died of old age. Shot 90 time and lived. What an amazing man. The real criminals of the ear was the railroads. The killed and stole from the average folks. That is why Jesse and Frank were heroes.

Regarded as a paraphrase rather than a real docudrama, this film does reveal some truths amid the fiction. Whatever one may think about the exploits of the James brothers and their various gangs, one cannot but have grave misgivings about the proto-fascist activities of Alan Pinkerton as the paid lackey of the railroad and banking interests in the post Civil War era. This "great detective" hired by the U.S. government to organise espionage against the Confederacy has been reliably reported as "manufacturing" most of the information submitted to President Lincoln.

The characters ascribed to the James brothers here is likely close to the truth, but why the contradictions of known facts. Their step-father Samuels was hanged by Pinkerton agents, not shot. Bob Ford, not Charlie, is the known assassin of Jesse James. This could have been a fine historical film, but some truth does emerge as initially said. The railroads and banks of the post Civil War era were proto-fascism at work in a very vicious form, and Alan Pinkerton was their "Himmler".

This was the second Jesse James film I ever saw. I first saw American Outlaws and realized that it wasn't very accurate. This is not a great film like Dances With Wolves or Tombstone, but is very good in my book. It shows a lot about what the former confederates had to go through after the war. The movie really shows the darker side of Jesse James and how passionate he was about what he did. Rob Lowe, Bill Paxton, and Randy Travis are great. But why do they have to change things like Bob Younger being a mute, their first bank robbery being in 1869 when it was in 1866, the fact that Jesse was shot once in the head and the second shot missed, and Bob Younger being shot by his brother Cole when he was actually captured with Cole after the North Field Raid. I believe that these things could have been changed and made a even better movie. Besides some other little things this is a fine historical movie and one of my personal favorites. If you like it see The Long Riders.