Frank & Jesse (1995)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Robert Boris

Writer (WGA):

Robert Boris (written by)

Release Date:

22 April 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Western

Tagline:

The civil war made them outlaws. The people made them heroes

Plot:

At the end of the Civil War, Frank and Jesse James and other former guerillas who rode with Quantrill...

Plot Keywords:

Jesse James | Historical | Child Murder | 1860s | Train Robbery

Cast

Rob Lowe	...	Jesse James
Bill Paxton	...	Frank James
Randy Travis	...	Cole Younger
Dana Wheeler-Nicholson	...	Annie
Maria Pitillo	...	Zee
Luke Askew	...	Lone Rider
Sean Patrick Flanery	...	Zack Murphy
Alexis Arquette	...	Charlie Ford
Todd Field	...	Bob Younger
John Pyper-Ferguson	...	Clell Miller
Nicholas Sadler	...	Arch Clements (as Nick Sadler)
William Atherton	...	Allan Pinkerton
Tom Chick	...	Detective Whitcher
Mary Neff	...	Widow Miller
Richard Maynard	...	John Sheets

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:12 | UK:15 | USA:R (certificate #33187) | Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA

Company:

Trimark Pictures

Trivia:

Even though, in the film, Jesse's home is shown as a big two-storey house, the original house is in fact much smaller and was located in town. However, the actual house still stands, but has been moved three times to its current location, next to the Patee House in St. Joseph, Missouri. The final scene with Jesse, the chair and picture is exactly how it happened according to Bob Ford. In the original house, there is still a dent and blood stain on the floor where Jesse fell.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: During the celebration of Jesse's new house one of the gang members is clearly carrying a modern Pump Action Shotgun. The earliest type of this weapon wasn't made till nearly a decade after James' death.

Quotes:

Frank James: What's your plan?
Jesse James: I'm going to find that painted horse and kill that son of a bitch sitting on its backside. That's my plan.

Soundtrack:

The Way He Is

A paraphrase of history does reveal some truths.

Regarded as a paraphrase rather than a real docudrama, this film does reveal some truths amid the fiction. Whatever one may think about the exploits of the James brothers and their various gangs, one cannot but have grave misgivings about the proto-fascist activities of Alan Pinkerton as the paid lackey of the railroad and banking interests in the post Civil War era. This "great detective" hired by the U.S. government to organise espionage against the Confederacy has been reliably reported as "manufacturing" most of the information submitted to President Lincoln.

The characters ascribed to the James brothers here is likely close to the truth, but why the contradictions of known facts. Their step-father Samuels was hanged by Pinkerton agents, not shot. Bob Ford, not Charlie, is the known assassin of Jesse James. This could have been a fine historical film, but some truth does emerge as initially said. The railroads and banks of the post Civil War era were proto-fascism at work in a very vicious form, and Alan Pinkerton was their "Himmler".