Jesse James (1939) on Netflix
GP19391h 46m
Railroad agents force Missouri farmers to sell their land cheap, and the James family refuses to give up their farm. Jesse and Frank turn to robbing banks and trains.
- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb7.0/105,575 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Railroad representative Barshee offers farmers a dollar an acre for land the railroad intends to cross, and those who refuse are dealt with by force. At the James farm he is told that Mrs. Samuels owns the property, and he keeps pressing her to sell until her son Frank intervenes and Jesse shoots Barshee in the hand. Warrants are issued for both brothers, and Rufus Cobb, an editor in Liberty, Missouri, urges them to leave. Jesse and Frank learn that Barshee is responsible for their mother's death, and Jesse kills him. The brothers then rob banks and trains, and the railway boss McCoy pursues them.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Jesse James (1939)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Outcry over a scene in which a horse died after being driven off a cliff led the American Humane Association to begin overseeing film production's care of animals shortly after the film's release.
- Accounts of the horse's fall conflicted: Leonard Mosley's 1985 biography of Darryl Zanuck said none of the horses had been injured, while Time reported in 1939 that Zanuck confirmed in print and letters that the death was an "accident"; most sources say the horse was put down after a 70-foot fall.
- Much of the film was shot around Pineville, Missouri, chosen because the area still looked as it would have in the 1880s and 1890s; its Old McDonald County Courthouse, a National Register site, stood in for the Liberty, Missouri, courthouse, and Pineville still holds Jesse James Days.
- The film was on continuous release in the United States for more than 15 years, and by May 1954 had played over 52,000 bookings in the United States and Canada.
