About the only thing I can say about The True Story Of Jesse James is that it's invested with a little less star glamor than the 1939 version with Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda as the James Brothers. Here Jesse and Frank are played by Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter with a bit more of a realistic style rather than it being substantially true.

Otherwise a lot of the same ground covered in flashbacks rather than a straight narrative is used. In fact Nunnally Johnson who wrote the 1939 screenplay for 20th Century Fox is given a screen credit here. The same theme is used here, Jesse might have turned outlaw for good and sufficient reason, but was getting a real taste for it by the time the Ford Brothers did him in.

There is a harbinger of the Oscar nominated performance that Casey Affleck gave a few years ago in the most recent Jesse James film in Carl Thayler's brief appearance as Bob Ford. Thayler hints at what Affleck spent a whole film doing, showing that Ford was a mixed up kid who thought he would gain public approval shooting down a notorious outlaw. However a sadly neglected Jesse James film was done in the Nineties by Rob Lowe as Jesse.

For better or worse many consider Jesse James as the last Confederate out there when he died in 1881. He certainly was a hero to many of the defeated Confederates doing what he did to the banks and railroads who were controlling a lot of the agrarian south and west.

Not true, but The True Story Of Jesse James is a passable retelling of the events that made him the legend he became.

Frank and Jesse James, farming brothers and bitter strays in the years following the Civil War, turn to a life of crime. After about 15 minutes of random shooting and killing, this remake of Henry King's 1939 drama "Jesse James" goes into corny flashback mode to fill us in on the reasons behind Jesse and Frank's slide into destruction (with a voice-over from their frail mother on her deathbed!). We get to see Jesse romantically baptized in the river alongside his girlfriend while the church congregation looks on, this just before the James boys call their posse together with plans of robbing their first bank. Screenwriter Walter Newman cribbed a great deal of his work from Nunnally Johnson's earlier script (which is also credited),yet the caveat that these proceedings are based on fact is too tough to swallow. Robert Wagner, his crop of glossy copper hair boyishly tossed to one side, is almost pitilessly miscast as Jesse; never finding the right tone of voice or the proper emotional inspiration for the role, Wagner is the laziest incarnation of a movie outlaw in some time. The rest of the cast--talented Fox contract players--do what they can, but this project is stillborn. *1/2 from ****

OK-to-dull. Really doesn't add anything to the Jesse James story. Yes, I know it was released in 1957 but I doubt anyone in 1957 felt more informed about Jesse James by seeing this movie. Pretty much a paint-by-numbers docu-drama.

Also feels like some details are left out. Ending seems abrupt - pacing is a bit off.

Good action sequences, so goodish purely as a western.

Robert Wagner is miscast as Jesse James. Far too straight-laced for the role. Hope Lange gives a fairly wooden performance. Supporting cast aren't too bad though.