Jesse James

Jesse James (1939)

Motion Pictures' Supreme Epic!

After railroad agents forcibly evict the James family from their family farm, Jesse and Frank turn to banditry for revenge.

Date of release
1939-01-14
TMDB
6.6 / 10 (116)
Runtime
1h 46m
Genres
Western
Director
Henry King
Collection
James Brothers Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: $1.6M

Jesse James is a 1939 American Western film directed by Henry King and starring Tyrone Power, Henry Fonda, Nancy Kelly, and Randolph Scott. Written by Nunnally Johnson, the film is loosely based on the life of Jesse James, the outlaw from whom the film derives its name. The supporting cast includes Henry Hull, John Carradine, Brian Donlevy, Jane Darwell, and Lon Chaney Jr.

Production

Much of the filming for Jesse James took place around the town of Pineville in McDonald County, Missouri, because at the time the town and surrounding area looked much as it would have in the 1880s and 1890s. The town's historic Old McDonald County Courthouse, a National Register of Historic Places site, was featured in the film serving as a stand-in for the Liberty, Missouri, courthouse.

After its release the film would gain a measure of misplaced notoriety for a scene in which a horse appears to fall to its death down a rocky slope toward the end of the film. This scene was one of many cited by the American Humane Association against Hollywood's abuse of animals, and led to the association's monitoring of filmmaking.

The most difficult riding stunts were performed for high fees by Cliff Lyons, who doubled both costars.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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