Some things in cinema never seem to change. The cash-in sequel is one of them. Fox's 1939 Production of Jesse James was an almost perfectly constructed example of that rare thing – a Western drama. Sure, it had an appropriate amount of action and cowboy business, but it also granted depth and humanity to its characters, giving as much weight to its intimate moments as its rip-roaring ones. In contrast, The Return of Frank James is a hearty cliché-fest, cheaply made and with an uncomplicated script by the disappointingly un-prestigious Sam Hellman.
The director here is Fritz Lang, a man now best remembered for his starkly Germanic silent pictures, and the poverty row noir thrillers he made later on. A heroic Western would seem to be the absolute antithesis of his comfort zone. But there was another Fritz Lang, one of carefree, comic-book adventure, who made pictures like The Spiders, Frau im Mond and The Tiger of Eschnapur. True to the simplistic material, Lang shoots the action scenes with an emphasis on pace and excitement. And yet you can recognise his outsider's approach to the genre. Rather than showing off the vastness and beauty of the old west, he presents it as a harsh, almost alien terrain, full of barren mountains and spiky trees. But this doesn't come across as a cynical rejection of the romanticism of the frontier – after all he still draws attention to natural beauty in the scenes at the farm. It seems more the case that Lang wishes to show the west as a perilous landscape, making the adventure more frantic and the danger more genuine.
You might also expect a director like Fritz Lang, whose shot composition was all about piercing shadows and swathes of grey, to struggle on his first Technicolor assignment. However Lang makes brilliantly restrained and practical use of colour, and really its no wonder since he pays such attention to detail in his shot compositions. In the first few scenes he strictly limits himself to a scheme of yellows and greys. Then, when Henry Fonda realises it's time to hunt down the Fords, we are suddenly jolted by a close-up of his gun wrapped in a bold red cloth. Throughout the picture Lang uses colour schemes to give mood and tone to each location, and even help define character. In the scene where Gene Tierney's character is first introduced, she is wearing a grey and maroon outfit that blends in with the plush décor of the hotel parlour.
As with many directors with a strong visual style, Lang's Achilles heel was getting the best out of his actors. Lang seems to have had a particular fondness for hams and hamminess, and does not seem to have encouraged naturalism. The camera seems to linger longer than strictly necessary on the cartoonish comedy business of Henry Hull and Ernest Whitman. Henry Fonda seems barely interested and does little more than recite his lines. Gene Tierney is rather feeble, although to be fair this is her screen debut. Jackie Cooper is merely average. To be fair though, the screenplay doesn't really give any of the leads a chance to show off their dramatic skills. On the other hand, John Carradine, who for a primary villain has a bizarrely small part with virtually no dialogue, is nevertheless at his dastardly best, and effectively menacing in his wordless appearance at the end of the court scene.
Lang by now had a reputation as a tyrant on the set and a pain to producers, and as such he was now being passed from studio to studio and assigned second rate projects like this. And while he clearly had respect for the American motion picture, he had become and would remain a Hollywood misfit. I suspect Henry Hull's constantly referring to Frank James' gun as a "weepon" may even have been a cheeky joke at the expense of Lang, who might have unknowingly been making the same mispronunciation. And yet it is really only Lang's odd yet innocently enthusiastic take on the Western that gives The Return of Frank James character, and make it at all worth watching today.
The director here is Fritz Lang, a man now best remembered for his starkly Germanic silent pictures, and the poverty row noir thrillers he made later on. A heroic Western would seem to be the absolute antithesis of his comfort zone. But there was another Fritz Lang, one of carefree, comic-book adventure, who made pictures like The Spiders, Frau im Mond and The Tiger of Eschnapur. True to the simplistic material, Lang shoots the action scenes with an emphasis on pace and excitement. And yet you can recognise his outsider's approach to the genre. Rather than showing off the vastness and beauty of the old west, he presents it as a harsh, almost alien terrain, full of barren mountains and spiky trees. But this doesn't come across as a cynical rejection of the romanticism of the frontier – after all he still draws attention to natural beauty in the scenes at the farm. It seems more the case that Lang wishes to show the west as a perilous landscape, making the adventure more frantic and the danger more genuine.
You might also expect a director like Fritz Lang, whose shot composition was all about piercing shadows and swathes of grey, to struggle on his first Technicolor assignment. However Lang makes brilliantly restrained and practical use of colour, and really its no wonder since he pays such attention to detail in his shot compositions. In the first few scenes he strictly limits himself to a scheme of yellows and greys. Then, when Henry Fonda realises it's time to hunt down the Fords, we are suddenly jolted by a close-up of his gun wrapped in a bold red cloth. Throughout the picture Lang uses colour schemes to give mood and tone to each location, and even help define character. In the scene where Gene Tierney's character is first introduced, she is wearing a grey and maroon outfit that blends in with the plush décor of the hotel parlour.
As with many directors with a strong visual style, Lang's Achilles heel was getting the best out of his actors. Lang seems to have had a particular fondness for hams and hamminess, and does not seem to have encouraged naturalism. The camera seems to linger longer than strictly necessary on the cartoonish comedy business of Henry Hull and Ernest Whitman. Henry Fonda seems barely interested and does little more than recite his lines. Gene Tierney is rather feeble, although to be fair this is her screen debut. Jackie Cooper is merely average. To be fair though, the screenplay doesn't really give any of the leads a chance to show off their dramatic skills. On the other hand, John Carradine, who for a primary villain has a bizarrely small part with virtually no dialogue, is nevertheless at his dastardly best, and effectively menacing in his wordless appearance at the end of the court scene.
Lang by now had a reputation as a tyrant on the set and a pain to producers, and as such he was now being passed from studio to studio and assigned second rate projects like this. And while he clearly had respect for the American motion picture, he had become and would remain a Hollywood misfit. I suspect Henry Hull's constantly referring to Frank James' gun as a "weepon" may even have been a cheeky joke at the expense of Lang, who might have unknowingly been making the same mispronunciation. And yet it is really only Lang's odd yet innocently enthusiastic take on the Western that gives The Return of Frank James character, and make it at all worth watching today.