Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Monday, February 3, 2014

OVERLOOKED FILM: JESSE JAMES' WOMEN (1954)

From IMDb:  "Jesse James keeps so busy skirt-chasing that his outlaw career starts to suffer."

No, we're not talking the Kat von D and the five-wives-including-Sandra-Bullock Jesse James.  This one is the real deal.  Kinda.

Directed, co-written, and co-produced by Don "Red" Barry, this one stars...Don "Red" Barry.   D. D. Beauchamp, a writer best known for his westerns (although he also penned Abbott and Costello Go To Mars), is credited with the story.  As for the screenplay, there were a lot of fingers in the pie; in addition to Beauchamp and Barry, Barry's co-producers Lloyd Royal and Tom Garraway got co-writing credits, as did William R. Cox, a popular western and mystery author.  ( I suspect Cox was brought in to make sense of the changes the co-producers made in the script.  That's often the way.)

Barry, of course, stars as Jesse James, Jack Buetel as his brother Frank, Sam Keller is Cole Younger, and Michael Carr plays "that coward" Robert Ford.  Jesse is hiding out, not as "Mr. Howard", but as J. Woodsen.  What about Jesse James' women?  There's Waco Gans (Peggie Castle), Delta (Lita Baron), Caprice Clark (Joyce Barrett, as "Joyce Rhed"), and Cattle Kate Kennedy (Betty Bruek).  Not one of Jesse's women is Angel Botts (Laura Lea).

Rotten Tomatoes has not rated this film, but notes:  Not much of a western, Jesse James' Women is recommended for fans of cimematic "cat fights."

That's good enough for me.  (Plus, according to family legend, Jesse James is a distant relative of my wife.  How can I resist?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ59YByRcBo

WARNING!  WARNING!  DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!  WARNING!  WARNING!

I just got a message that the link takes you to episode one of The Adventures of Smilin' Jack.  My face is as red as this typeface.  Anyhoo...here is the correct link:

https://archive.org/details/JesseJamesWoman

Just consider the Smilin' Jack episode as a bonus.  (Actually, with my lack of computer skills, I'm lucky I don't pull a snafu two or three times a week.)

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