User Reviews

There have been numerous films about Jesse James, most notably Sam Fuller's "I Shot Jesse James", Nick Ray's "The True Story of Jesse James", Kaufman's "The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid", Hill's "The Long Riders" and Dominik's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford".

Being the most recent, Dominik's film gets all the attention, but Kaufman's and Hill's deserve just as much notice. Though released in the 1970s, Kaufman's film must be watched through the lens of his astronaut epic, "The Right Stuff", both films offering an absurdist take on progress and frontier pushing. Here, Jesse is a confused charlatan and the gang's criminality is seen as being outdated in the face of banking cartels, protection rackets and business scams. In this new world, the business man is the new criminal, violence now taking the form of organised sports, rail barons and profit margins. "How much you think that'll fetch?" one man remarks, as he tries to figure out whether he can make more profits selling earrings in pairs or singles. Stuffed dolls are similarly traded for money, whilst steam engines and horseless buggies are treated as, not a form of technological progress, but a form of capitalist spectacle which pushes Jesse and his gang further and further into extinction. Indeed, it is a steam piano constructed to attract people to a bank, which ultimately gets Jesse's gang killed.

The gang itself is split into two groups. Those who follow Cole Younger and those who follow Jesse James. Jesse embodies a kind of no-nonsense criminal psychopathy, stealing and killing and forever unable to live up to his romantic myth (he pretends to receive messages from God, but nobody believes him). Cole, in contrast, tries to play the game by the banks' rules, using guile, cunning and elaborate schemes. Significantly, Cole's plan backfires and he dies, whilst the lawless Jesse, a product of a different age, rides comically off into the sunset. Like Altman's "Thieves Like Us", the film subversively portrays its gangs, not as noble Robin Hoods stealing from corporate fat cats, but part of the same all inclusive racket.

Walter Hill's "The Long Riders" is a different sort of beast altogether. This is a fast paced action movie, the "legendary moments" in the life of Jesse James downplayed in favour for ambiance and texture. Town dances, chirping crickets, women being pushed on swings, touching romantic relationships with whores...this is film which serves up a certain air of melancholy, before launching into a series of staggeringly violent action set pieces. Hill's gangsters are not wild-eyed maniacs but disenfranchised criminals looking to score easy cash so that they can retire to some country paradise. In other words, it's a Michael Mann macho poem with the violence of Walter Hill's mentor, Sam Peckinpah, grafted on.

Hill's film also revolves around a cat and mouse feud between Jesse and the Pinkerton Detective Agency, a group of lawmen working for the banks and railroads. In an effort to humanise the gang, the film paints these lawmen as murderous brutes who kill innocents and set homes ablaze. These, of course, are narrative tactics used to convince us that Jesse and his boys are innocent of any wrong doings and that they were merely provoked by violent authorities.

Andrew Dominik's "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", in contrast, is implicitly about celebrity. Here, Jesse's gang are mythologized through legend and media exposure, and it is this which curses them. Jesse himself is killed, not by Robert Ford, but by celebrity itself. The film is thus about, not only looking, but being looked down upon, looked up at, and having perceptions projected upon you. Jesse's death, in which looking at a picture literally kills him, encapsulates all these themes. It is Jesse's own gaze, his aloof attitude toward Ford, which causes Ford's worshipful stare to be corrupted, but more importantly, co-oped by Pinkerton. Here, celebrity and mythology bulldoze truths, and court death by assuming a kind of superiority. Of course death, rather than debunking myths, tends to reinforce them further.

But while all three films go off on their own interesting tangents, they make a mistake which has been around since Henry Fonda's 1939 film, "Jesse James". These films ignore history and turn Jesse in a superstar, a Robin Hood, a pretty boy rogue, when this image was wholly invented by John Edwards, a racist and pro Confederate journalist who wanted to create a heroic figure to help rally people against the Union.

At the time, the state of Missouri belonged to the Confederates, whereas the state of Kansas was held by the Union. The two states fought each other fiercely, killing civilians, burning houses and committing various other war crimes. Jesse James, following in his brother's footsteps, joined the Confederates, fought with them for several years and then left the army to form a robbery gang with several soldiers. They hit trains and banks and kept the loot, but because banks and railroads were symbols of the Union States (who were forcing farmers, civilians etc to buy Federal dollars), it became easy for Confederate supporters to turn Jesse into a kind of rebel figure.

Jesse then began to milk this image, selling himself as an altruistic warrior who fought evil Yankee rail barons for Southern honour. In reality, far from being the last hurrah of the Confederate cause, Jesse was a cold hearted guy who fought for the preservation of slavery, robbed trains dressed as the KKK and kept all the loot for him and his gang. Of course none of the Jesse James films deal with this, even Dominik's, which is specifically about the allure and falsity of celebrity.

7.9/10 - Interesting.

There are really nice things here. Duvall taken by the spirit and delivering visions of Yankee raids; his sycophant brother following him even to the toilet; Luke Askew's missing lip; the old woman pronouncing doom in cryptic rhyme; Duvall's escape in drag; Robertson shot 16 times. But Kaufman apparently didn't have the chops to know that Bruce Surtees was quietly destroying what could have been a pretty good little art picture.

What should be a semi-psychedelic fever dream of distorted Americana looks like a drunken episode of Bonanza, crowded/blurry/badly framed two-shots all in brown. Half the film takes place in the woods, in Missouri, and it's not even green. The whole movie seems to have been shot with a single lens. Even the credits appear cheap and dated. No question, this movie looks as low-end and made-for-TV as any Aldrich or McLaglen Western of the same period. LONG RIDERS, a later, more traditional and visually interesting James Gang movie by Walter Hill, certainly is slicker in delivery.

But NORTHFIELD, for all its art-school faults, at least reaches toward transcendence. In Kaufman's writing and direction is an attempt to commandeer the drive-in horse opera formula and ride it into 70s ambiguity. The bad guy heroes are sort of unheroic; the Pinkertons are a cartoon counterpoint; the dialogue is occasionally quite choice. But while this is my favorite screen investigation of Jesse James, the film as a whole does not rise above its weaknesses.

One of the things that most impressed me about Philip Kaufman's take on the James-Younger gang's depredations when I was a kid was that he didn't make these guys out to be heroes: they were Civil War veterans who held grudges and did everything they could to make the Northern Invaders pay for what they'd wrought. The dark, dreary look of the movie fit its overall tone. It was interesting, too, that Kaufman focused more on Cole Younger than Jesse James (who, as played by Robert Duval, struck a chord most creepy as the often bible-thumping but murderous son of a preacher). A unique western then, and just as compelling a film now. Hop on board for the ride: you won't be disappointed.

At 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 7, 1876, eight members of the infamous James-Younger Gang attempted to rob the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota. The local citizenry got wind of the robbery while it was in progress and a fierce shoot-out erupted outside the bank. Two members of the gang—Clell Miller and Bill Chadwell—were killed and Jim and Bob Younger wounded (and later captured, along with brother Cole, the ringleader). A bank employee and a bystander were killed and another bank employee wounded. Frank and Jesse James managed to escape back to Tennessee but, after five years in operation, the James-Younger Gang ceased to exist: an outcome still celebrated in Northfield annually. 104 years after the bungled robbery writer-director Philip Kaufman brought out a film version of the famous raid that is not strictly accurate historically but entirely consistent with the anti-authority zeitgeist of the early Seventies. Paul Frees' sonorous opening voice-over sets the tone: "Even before the wounds of the Civil War had healed in Missouri, the railroads came swarming in to steal the land. Everywhere, men from the railroads were driving poor, defenseless families from their homes. And that's when a fresh wind suddenly began to blow. It was other Clay County farmers, the James and Younger boys, coming to the rescue. They tarred and feathered the railroad men and drove them from the land. From that moment onward, they were outlaws. But the people of Missouri would never forget what the boys had done for them." The laughable notion that Jesse James was a modern Robin Hood originated with James himself, an early adept at public relations, who characterized himself and his cohorts as aggrieved victims of a Radical Republican administration bent on unending persecution of those who had sided with the defeated Confederacy. The newspapers ratified Jesse James's version of himself, which soon passed into enduring myth. In reality James was apolitical and a criminal psychopath to boot. Also worth noting is the fact that the James-Younger gang mostly robbed banks; railroads were only an occasional target of opportunity. Kaufman's film correctly characterizes Jesse James (Robert Duvall) as mean and unstable and Cole Younger (Cliff Robertson) as the real brains of the outfit. Where the film most egregiously errs is in depicting the Northfield raid in Keystone Cops fashion and in characterizing the gang's victims and foes as generally corrupt, cruel, incompetent or cowardly. The outlaws look good by comparison and their enemies get to stand in for an emerging, oppressive corporate establishment (cf. 'Bonnie & Clyde' and 'The Wild Bunch'). VHS (1992) and DVD (2007).

Just like his contemporary Billy the Kid, Jesses James has become the subject of a myriad of books and films. Heck, even Roy Rogers made a couple ("Days of Jesse James", "Jesse James at Bay") that capitalized on the name but didn't really have anything to do with the real life outlaw. This film actually turns the James-Younger Gang into the Younger-James Gang, with Cliff Robertson headlining the cast as Cole Younger and Robert Duvall taking a back seat as a maniacal, God-fearing Confederate sympathizer still fighting the Civil War.

The picture provides an interesting diversion with that new fangled national sport called baseball. The first time I ever saw a ball game in a Western was in a Richard Boone episode of 'Have Gun Will Travel'. In that one, a base runner was shot attempting to stretch a team mate's hit to score at home plate and was summarily shot by an opposing player. I was fully expecting to see that here, but the game stayed civilized with only full body contact used to thwart the opposition. One wonders why they needed an umpire.

Back in Northfield proper, the outlaws prove that robbing a bank can indeed be a shovel ready job. If the true history of the raid included a gang member getting locked in the bank safe, I'd never heard of it before. It didn't seem plausible to me even if it did happen, but I'm intrigued enough to look it up later. For revisionist Western fans, this one will prove to have some merit, though for my money, I'll take the 1980 Walter Hill flick "The Long Riders" with that amazingly choreographed slow motion horse jump through the windows for the getaway. Now that was a wonderment.

It's a strange mixture of comedy and dramatic action, cheerfully ripping off two wildly successful movies of a few years earlier, "The Wild Bunch" and "Bonnie and Clyde." Pekinpah's influence is much in evidence in the editing, since there are many brief shots of the faces of participants laughing pointlessly or gaping in shock. No slow motion, though. It's hard to imagine how director Kaufman missed that stylish trait. The long, retrograde title brings to mind several lavish flicks of the 60s -- "The Great Race," "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines," which may in turn have been influenced by Tom Wolfe.

Cliff Robertson, in a typically restrained but effective performance, is Cole Younger, the outlaw who leads a dozen others in a raid on the bank at Northfield, Minnesota, the kind of place we don't normally associate with the outlawism of the Old West.

Actually, he's kind of a co-leader of the gang, the less reckless and less bloodthirsty one. His partner is Robert Duvall as Jesse James. Jesse doesn't mind slinging lead around because, in addition to stealing money, he wants to demonstrate that "the war is still going on." Kids, that war is what we call "the American Civil War." It was fought between the Northern and Southern states in the early 1860s. That's "1860s AD". The "AD" stands for "anno domini." That's Latin and it means "in the year of our Lord." Jesse James is talking about "the American Civil War." Jesse fought for the South and, like a few others, turned outlaw when the formal conflict ended. PS: The South lost.

Most of the gang have nothing but contempt for the good folk of Minnesota they are about to rob of all their money. Ain't nothing' up there but Squareheads anyhow. Squareheads are most Scandinavians like Swedes and Norwegians but can include Germans and Poles too. The outlaws can't tell the difference. Kielbasi and knockwurst become jokes at the dinner table.

When they reach Northfield and begin to case the joint, they are introduced to the game of baseball. They've never heard of it. "Yep, it's our National Sport!", one Squarehead brags. The baseball scene is played for laughs but, to tell the truth, it's a bit extended. After a while it no longer seems so funny when the ball lands in a cow flop or a brawl breaks out. I, for one, was happy when Cole Younger finally shoots the ball into sawdust while it's in mid air.

Finally we get to the robbery itself, which takes place in rain and mud, not the dusty and sun-baked little towns we usually think of. (It was shot in Oregon, where it rains a lot.) Murphy's Law applies. "If something can go wrong, it will." The townspeople are as ready to shoot as the bandits are and all hell breaks loose. Cole Younger winds up with some 28 bullets in his body but manages to live out the rest of his life in prison, dying only in 1916.

I found it kind of entertaining. The baseball scenes do have some laughs after all. And Cole Younger is as amusing as Jesse James is chilling. Not that Younger actively tries to be funny. It's just that his character has some engaging quirks and some good lines. I also thought it might be, well, instructive for younger viewers, the kind who have little history and less general knowledge, the kind who think that baseball and pipe organs, like tooth decay, have always been with us, maybe invented by cave men.

The opening scene is in northwest Missouri.The railroads are stealing the farmers' properties and dispossessing them.

In 1876 the Missouri legislature moves to grant a blanket amnesty to farmers as well as to Jesse and frank James(two celebrated Missouri outlaws.)

However,the railroad hires detective Allan Pinkerton(Dana Elcar)to "get" the Jameses.

Frank(John Pearce)and Jesse(Robert Duvall)find some newspaper upon which gang member Cole Younger(Cliff Robertson)has written plans to rob the First National Bank in Northfield,Minnesota.

They justify robbing the bank because the amnesty vote was blocked by a Pinkerton bribe.

The train carrying Pinkerton enters the area; detectives dressed as farmers disembark,positioning themselves to kill the James gang.The resulting ambush leaves Cole Younger seriously wounded and the Pinkerton detectives dead.

Although Jesse James comes from educated people,he rants himself into a mad-eyed,ecstatic state describing the upcoming bank robbery.

Jesse and Frank leave to pursue Jesse's "vision"; Younger and his group soon follow.

On the way the Youngers pick up Clell Miller(R.G.Armstrong.)Upon entering Northfield,a curious sight greets Younger and the gang: a trackless steam engine chugging down the middle of Main Street.

In front of the First National Bank is another oddity: a malfunctioning steam calliope on the sidewalk.Cole Younger repairs the calliope's pressure gauge.

In Northfield,Younger strikes a nefarious bargain with Mr.Wilcox(Robert R.Harris),the bank's owner,who plans to inveigle the unsuspecting townsfolk to invest their savings - then fleece them,and disappear.

Wilcox is seconded by his "yes-man,"Bunker(Elisha Cook,Jr.),but the upright bookkeeper,Heywood(Jack Manning)denounces them both.

Meanwhile,the Jameses and their part of the gang lodge with an elderly lady being evicted over an unpaid mortgage of $80.Jesse hears her rambling story about"don't sell the children"(a group of mannikins); Jesse buys the "Uncle Sam" doll for $80,takes it and confronting the landlord,shoots him dead.

At the town's baseball game,the Northfield team wins because Cole Younger blasts the ball to smithereens with his rifle.Younger(calling himself "Mr. King")and Wilcox "converse" over "King's" nearly being robber,and how he wants to protect his money in a safe bank.

Another comedic touch at the game is a lanky young man with a goofy grin who is marching around,shouldering a rifle.He's Henry Wheeler(Barry Brown),supposedly a medical student,but wearing impossibly thick-lensed glasses!

Younger tries to show Wheeler how to shoot correctly; Wheeler promptly shoots off a man's hat!Later,at a blacksmith's,Younger creates a device for Wheeler's gun allowing him to shoot straight - with unexpected catastrophic results,later.

A phony gold shipment "conveniently" arrives near the playing field,"guarded" by Younger's gang.The townsfolk,entranced,rush to put their money in the local bank.

Back in town Younger encounters a wild-eyed,incoherent individual, "Crazy" Gustavson(Royal Dano).He is insane because his son never returned from the Civil War.

Jesse James and his group ride into town,meeting up with the Youngers and their group.Before the robbery,Cole Younger shoots the town telegrapher through a plate-glass window.

Now inside the bank, Wilcox(outflanked in treachery by Younger)is soundly beaten.Bunker(injured)escapes out a back window,but the brave Haywood,who claims he can't open the bank vault's time lock is shot dead by James.(The vault,which opens briefly,traps Bill Chadwell(Craig Curtis)inside.)

Unexpectedly,"Crazy" Gustavson shows up raving,and is shot dead - but falls onto the steam calliope which,blasting like an air-raid siren alerts the townsfolk.

The enthusiastic kid,Wheeler,fires wildly with the modified gun and accidentally hits Clell Miller,killing him instantly.

Armed citizens pour into the streets,shooting.In the mêlée,Bob Younger is shot,rescued by his brother,and the surviving outlaws escape.

When the bank's time lock opens the trapped outlaw,Bill Chadwell,is promptly gunned down.

Back at the "doll lady's" house,Cole Younger,his brothers Bob and Jim (Luke askew),Charlie Pitts(Wayne Sunderlin)and the James brothers are hiding out.The Jameses want to leave; the Youngers want to stay.Bob Younger's condition is serious,requiring immediate medical attention; the elderly lady wants to bring back a trustworthy doctor.The Jameses accompany her.

A search party finds the remainder of the gang holed up in the house and enfilades it,killing Charlie Pitts.

Jesse and Frank James escape in a buckboard,heading for Missouri.Jesse is disguised in women's clothes.Presumably,they murdered the elderly lady and stole her wagon.

As Pinkerton's train arrives in Northfield,he is infuriated to see the prison wagon paraded through the town's streets,the townsfolk cheering the surviving desperadoes.(Footnote: Cole Younger received a life sentence for murder,and served 25 years in prison.)

Cliff Robertson(Cole Younger)played the part of the outlaw Cole Younger with a certain raffish bravado.

Robert Duvall(Jesse James)was eerie as the fanatical Jesse James whose cosmic "vision" led him to Northfield to rob the bank.

Dana Elcar(Allan Pinkerton)was convincingly self-righteous as the sinister detective who cut corners in the pursuit of "justice."

John Pearce(Frank James)was very good as Jesse's supportive brother,Frank.

Wayne Sutherlin(Charlie Pitts)was believable as the taciturn Charlie Pitts.

R.G.Armstrong(Clell Miller)imparted a "good ol'boy" flavor to his characterization of Clell Miller.

Royal Dano("Crazy" Gustavson)was convincingly demented as the ill-starred émigré.

Barry Brown(Henry Wheeler)was engaging as the enthusiastic but maladroit medical student,playing his part with just the right comedic touch.

"The Great Northfield,Minnesota Raid" is a Revisionist Western(a genre popular just after the Sixties),and is greatly at variance with the true facts surrounding the event.However, for 91 minutes of escapist diversion - it will fit the bill nicely.

Writer/director Phillip Kaufman eschews the well-documented facts of the famous ambitious (and ultimately botched) robbery in the name of bold and downright irreverent revisionism that offers a pointed satirical critique of the new "civilization" that was coming into being at the end of the 19th century (for example, the mob of angry townspeople who go after the gang in the wake of the robbery prove to be more crazed and dangerous than said gang!). It's Kaufman's fiercely biting dry wit that gives this film an extra tangy flavor, along with the sharp cinematography by Bruce Surtees, David Grusin's jubilant and harmonic score, and the splendidly sonorous narration by the ubiquitous Paul Frees. Cliff Robertson gives an excellent and engaging performance as the shrewd and amiable Cole Younger while Robert Duvall breathes hell-raising fire as an extremely ornery Jesses James. The stellar supporting cast of familiar character faces keeps the movie buzzing: Luke Askew as the stoic and laconic Jim Younger, R.G. Armstrong as the crusty Chet Miller, Dana Elcar as the jolly Allen, Donald Moffat as the sarcastic Manning, Matt Clark as the antsy Bob Younger, Elisha Cook Jr. as the weaselly Bunker, and, in an especially tragic small part, Royal Dano as loony old coot Gustavson. Moreover, the quirky array of colorful characters are lots of fun to watch, the titular caper is both tense and thrilling, and the vivid evocation of the period seems authentic (if not entirely accurate). Recommended viewing.