The Long Riders (1980) on Netflix
Jesse James and Cole Younger lead a band of outlaws who rob banks and trains across the Midwest. Their brothers ride with them. A Pinkerton detective takes up their trail.
- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb6.9/1014,919 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes81%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the years after the Civil War, banks and trains become targets for a band of outlaws in the Midwest. Jesse James and Cole Younger lead the gang, and their brothers ride with them: Frank James, and Jim, John and Bob Younger. The Miller brothers, Ed and Clell, are part of the band as well. A Pinkerton detective, Mr. Rixley, is assigned to capture the outlaws.
Cast
- Shelby Leveringtonas Annie Ralston
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Long Riders (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The whole idea started in 1971, when James and Stacy Keach played the Wright brothers in a television film and James decided they should do Jesse and Frank James next. He first wrote it as a folk opera, Brothers, which Stacy financed and produced.
- David Carradine described the recruiting of his family as a circle of bluffs: he agreed to play a Younger because Stacy Keach had agreed, Stacy agreed because David had, and Keith was the hard sell who could not refuse once everyone else was in.
- Told in Hollywood that he would never hold the families together, James Keach sent limousines for all of them and staged a group photograph at midnight in a recording studio where Keith Carradine was cutting tracks. The picture persuaded NBC to fund a six-hour mini-series, until new network president Fred Silverman canceled everything his predecessors had ordered.
- Beau and Jeff Bridges were set to play the Ford brothers but became unavailable. Jeff Bridges said a scheduling clash cost him the part, and admitted that on first reading he thought the material did not match up with the gimmick of casting real brothers.
- For the shot of horses jumping through a window, Walter Hill's team spent three weeks training them to make the leap with no glass in place. A horse will only go through the glass once, so a second set of animals was needed for the second jump, filmed in slow motion.
- To get the Carradines an equal share, David Carradine gave up the profit participation he normally received and the Keach brothers surrendered the extra percentages they were owed as executive producers.
- When the production passed its $7.5 million budget, James and Stacy Keach handed back their executive producer fees. "The Long Riders has been made on faith and idealism," James Keach said.
