Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
I Shot Jesse James (1948)
Director: Samuel Fuller
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Fuller's first film is a virtual illustration of his dictum that the cinema is like a battleground: 'Love, hate, action, violence, death...in one word, Emotion.' Having to choose between loyalty to the past and a love for Jesse James (Hadley), or a desire for a future and the love of a woman, Fuller's outlaw hero Bob Ford (Ireland) makes the wrong choice. He shoots James, only to discover that his whole life has become defined by this deed: doomed to re-enact the murder on stage, and condemned to notoriety in 'The Ballad of Jesse James'. His vision of the future fades into jealousy, economic hardship and, as Phil Hardy has pointed out, 'misplaced love'. As such, more a psychological drama (emphasised by the use of close-up) than a Western, and a highly original film.Author: CPe
Cast & crew
Director: Samuel Fuller
Producer: Clark K Hittleman
Cast: Preston Foster, Barbara Britton, John Ireland, Reed Hadley, J Edward Bromberg, Victor Kilian, Tom Tyler, Byron Foulger full cast
Genre(s): Westerns
Duration: 81 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now