A Volta de Frank James

Thanks to the terrific cast and photography, this story makes a terrific western. Henry Hull is terrific as major Cobb, who expresses justified Southern outrage over the depradations of the carpetbaggers and the railroads. Despite the ignorant comments of some who dare to make a ludicrous comparison to fascism, what we get here is an honest expression of southern feelings. Yes, there was a condesencion toward blacks then, but let film show it as it was, let's not try to rewrite history or create a pleasing fiction as all too many modern films do. 'Shoot em down like dogs??!' I would dearly love to see Major Cobb in a modern day courtroom, giving fire and damnation to the lawyers and other parasites that hide behind suits and ties! This is a real satisfying film and Gene Tierney never looked better.

The first western directed by Fritz Lang and it wouldn't be his last. Henry Fonda returns as Frank James and so do several other cast members like John Carradine and Henry Hull. There is a new cast member played by Jackie Cooper who is playing Jesse James grown up kid. This one starts out with Frank wanting to give up bank robbing until he hears about Jesse getting killed and then going after the Ford brothers who killed him. The Ford brothers, by the way, are putting on a show about how they killed Jesse.

Frank doesn't have that much money so he decides to rob a bank and a man is killed by the posse but they think Frank did it. There's more to the plot by you can find that out for yourself. This is Gene Tierney's first film and in this movie Frank had to avenge Jesse's murder without actually killing anyone himself, do to the strictures of the censors.

The sequel to the previous year's "Jesse James" (1939), "The Return of Frank James" is a perfectly entertaining, fast-moving Western that is historically important for two reasons: It was director Fritz Lang's first picture to be shot in color, and it served as the setting for the debut of one of Hollywood's most beloved actresses, Gene Tierney. In her 1979 autobiography "Self-Portrait," Gene tells us that Fox Studio head Darryl F. Zanuck had seen her performing on Broadway in 1940 in "The Male Animal," and immediately offered her a contract. After a previous stalled career in Hollywood, however, Gene--and her family--managed to finagle an unusually liberal deal from the studio chief: $750 a week, with a raise every six months, and the freedom to return to Broadway for half the year (an option that Gene never took advantage of), AND the right to make no changes to her hair or (soon-to-be-famous) teeth. In her first film for Fox, 20-year-old Gene played the role of Eleanor Stone, a liberated woman and nascent reporter on the Denver Star newspaper of 1882. She is duped by Frank James (Henry Fonda) and his sidekick Clem (Jackie Cooper, who had grown up a LOT since playing the role of kids a mere 10 years before, in films such as 1931's "The Champ") into writing a false story of the outlaw's demise, so that he might more easily track down the Ford brothers (John Carradine and Charles Tanner), who had just shot Jesse in the back and gotten away with it. Gene is excellent in her ingenue role, fresh faced and dewy eyed, and hardly deserving of Harvard Lampoon's "The Worst Female Discovery of 1940" citation.

As for the rest of the film, it is nicely shot and filled with amusing characters and situations. Besides Fonda and Carradine, Donald Meek returns in this sequel (a bit tougher than usual, as the conniving railroad man McCoy), as does Henry Hull (almost stealing the show as Frank's buddy Major Rufus Cobb). The film contains surprisingly little action per se, although a horse chase through the Rockies and resultant gunfight, coming at the picture's midpoint, are very well executed. Fonda, who had worked with Lang before, in 1937's "You Only Live Once," is very fine here as Frank James: sympathetic, cool and tough; a reformed badman with a conscience, and perhaps only 1/100th as nasty as he would be 30 years or so later, playing another Frank, in Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West." Tierney, apparently, absolutely adored working with Fonda, especially after he defended her against the director. As Tierney reveals in her book, she had the unfortunate habit of keeping her mouth slightly parted when she wasn't speaking (an adorable habit, sez me!), and Lang chastised her severely for it, yelling "You little bitch! When you have no lines, keep your mouth shut!" Little could Lang know that that mouth and those teeth would soon make Gene one of THE preeminent screen goddesses of the 1940s! Anyway, although "The Return of Frank James" has been faulted elsewhere for its many historical inaccuracies, it remains a fun enough diversion. Capped off by one of the most amusing trial scenes since The Three Stooges' "Disorder in the Court," the film is perfect for all ages, and most especially, of course, for fans of Miss Gene Tierney....

"The Return of Frank James" has a nice script, beautiful costumes, an accurate photography in gorgeous technicolor. Perhaps a further pair of gun-fights would be desirable: gun-fights in a western movie are like salt in the food. The film has a peculiar interest for cinephiles, since here the great director Fritz Lang confronts himself with the western genre for the first time. I think he makes a good job, even if does not seem completely at his home. Moreover we have the usual Henry Fonda's charisma and... OK... the main reason why I am interested in the movie is the presence of Gene Tierney at the very beginning of her career. I must confess that here her legendary beauty is still a bit unripe... let's say that Venus has just come out of the shell. No fear: within one year or two our eyes will rest on the highest beauty in movie history (in history at all, I dare say).

Return of Frank James, The (1940)

*** (out of 4)

Fritz Lang directed this sequel to Jesse James, which picks up right after the Ford Brothers shot Jesse in the back. Hearing that the brothers got off with murder, Frank (Henry Fonda) comes out of retirement to seek revenge. This film isn't quite as good as the original but it's still a very worthy follow up with strong direction and some really good performances. Fonda is good as usual but it's Henry Hull who steals the show as the grumpy newspaper owner. John Carradine, Gene Tierney and Jackie Cooper are all equally impressive. The ending is terrific but I personally thought the courtroom scene went a little too over the top in the comedy.