"Jesse James" was one of the most successful films of 1939, and whenever Hollywood has a success on its hands it likes to make a sequel. (Well, in 1939 it contented itself with only one sequel; today it would probably launch a franchise and we would end up with "Jesse James: Part VIII" or something like that). So how do you make a sequel to a film which famously ends with its hero being shot dead? Step forward Jesse's brother Frank, a supporting character in the original but here promoted to leading man.
The original film took many liberties with the historical truth, but it did at least have some foundation in fact. "The Return of Frank James" is more or less complete fiction based upon a historical character. After Jesse's death the real Frank James handed himself in to the law, was tried for but acquitted of involvement in the crimes of the James-Younger gang and in the last thirty years of his life worked at a variety of jobs, including telegraph operator, shoe salesman, fruit picker and burlesque theatre ticket taker. Now telegraph operating, shoe selling, fruit picking and burlesque theatre ticket taking may all be honourable trades and their practitioners upright citizens, but it would be difficult to make an interesting movie based around any of them, so in this version of history Frank goes looking for revenge on his brother's killers, the Ford brothers, something the real Frank never did.
"Jesse James" was essentially a serious film, although it did suffer from inappropriate attempts at comic relief. "The Return..." suffers even more from an inability to decide whether it is a comedy or a serious drama. Another figure who makes a return, in this case an unwelcome one, is Henry Hull's Rufus, an elderly and comically eccentric newspaper editor. As in the earlier film there is a running "joke" about how Rufus is always running the same editorial in his paper insisting that the only solution to the problems of the West is to take some group of people and "shoot them down like dogs", the only difference being the identity of the group which Rufus wants shot. This "joke" wasn't funny the first time it was used, and becomes progressively unfunnier when repeated ad nauseam. There is an incongruous juxtaposition of the comic and tragic at the end of the film. In one of the scriptwriter's few concessions to historical fact, Frank does hand himself into the law and is put on trial, but the trial scene is largely played for laughs. Then, immediately afterwards, Frank's young friend Clem, a sympathetic figure, is shot dead by the bad guys.
The film was directed by Fritz Lang, who was not involved with "Jesse James". (That film was directed by Henry King). Lang has always struck me as one of the high priests of high seriousness, both in his early days as an exponent of German Expressionism and in his later incarnation as the director of films noirs like "The Big Heat" or "Human Desire". He was therefore probably not the natural choice to direct a semi-comic western, and things were not improved by the antipathy between him and the film's star Henry Fonda, who regarded him as a bully. (They had clashed while making "You Only Live Once" and were to do so again here).
Despite his clash with the director, Fonda is always watchable here, even though this is far rm his best film and he had been better in "Jesse James". Gene Tierney, the loveliest actress of the forties, makes her screen debut here as a would-be lady journalist anxious to get a scoop out of Frank's career, although her inexperience clearly shows. (She was to improve greatly in later outings). The one character whose presence I found regrettable was Frank's African-American friend Pinky, a patronising caricature of a black man of the sort that was all too common in the cinema of the thirties and forties. The fault here, however, lies not with the actor Ernest Whitman but with the script and a Hollywood system which saw black actors as suitable for little else than comical or bit parts, often playing servants.
For all its inaccuracies, "Jesse James" is often highly entertaining. "The Return..." has its moments, but is not really in the same class. An early example of what might be called sequelitis- the phenomenon whereby sequels are rarely as good as the original films. 6/10
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The original film took many liberties with the historical truth, but it did at least have some foundation in fact. "The Return of Frank James" is more or less complete fiction based upon a historical character. After Jesse's death the real Frank James handed himself in to the law, was tried for but acquitted of involvement in the crimes of the James-Younger gang and in the last thirty years of his life worked at a variety of jobs, including telegraph operator, shoe salesman, fruit picker and burlesque theatre ticket taker. Now telegraph operating, shoe selling, fruit picking and burlesque theatre ticket taking may all be honourable trades and their practitioners upright citizens, but it would be difficult to make an interesting movie based around any of them, so in this version of history Frank goes looking for revenge on his brother's killers, the Ford brothers, something the real Frank never did.
"Jesse James" was essentially a serious film, although it did suffer from inappropriate attempts at comic relief. "The Return..." suffers even more from an inability to decide whether it is a comedy or a serious drama. Another figure who makes a return, in this case an unwelcome one, is Henry Hull's Rufus, an elderly and comically eccentric newspaper editor. As in the earlier film there is a running "joke" about how Rufus is always running the same editorial in his paper insisting that the only solution to the problems of the West is to take some group of people and "shoot them down like dogs", the only difference being the identity of the group which Rufus wants shot. This "joke" wasn't funny the first time it was used, and becomes progressively unfunnier when repeated ad nauseam. There is an incongruous juxtaposition of the comic and tragic at the end of the film. In one of the scriptwriter's few concessions to historical fact, Frank does hand himself into the law and is put on trial, but the trial scene is largely played for laughs. Then, immediately afterwards, Frank's young friend Clem, a sympathetic figure, is shot dead by the bad guys.
The film was directed by Fritz Lang, who was not involved with "Jesse James". (That film was directed by Henry King). Lang has always struck me as one of the high priests of high seriousness, both in his early days as an exponent of German Expressionism and in his later incarnation as the director of films noirs like "The Big Heat" or "Human Desire". He was therefore probably not the natural choice to direct a semi-comic western, and things were not improved by the antipathy between him and the film's star Henry Fonda, who regarded him as a bully. (They had clashed while making "You Only Live Once" and were to do so again here).
Despite his clash with the director, Fonda is always watchable here, even though this is far rm his best film and he had been better in "Jesse James". Gene Tierney, the loveliest actress of the forties, makes her screen debut here as a would-be lady journalist anxious to get a scoop out of Frank's career, although her inexperience clearly shows. (She was to improve greatly in later outings). The one character whose presence I found regrettable was Frank's African-American friend Pinky, a patronising caricature of a black man of the sort that was all too common in the cinema of the thirties and forties. The fault here, however, lies not with the actor Ernest Whitman but with the script and a Hollywood system which saw black actors as suitable for little else than comical or bit parts, often playing servants.
For all its inaccuracies, "Jesse James" is often highly entertaining. "The Return..." has its moments, but is not really in the same class. An early example of what might be called sequelitis- the phenomenon whereby sequels are rarely as good as the original films. 6/10
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