Jesse James

An influential, sympathetic biography of the West's most famous outlaw, 'One of the dog-gonedest, dad-blamedest buckaroos that ever rode across the United States of America' (not a description that immediately brings to mind Tyrone Power). Shot in new, improved Technicolor by George Barnes, the film looks well, and King directs with uncharacteristic spurts of vitality whenever Jesse gets busy, though Nunnally Johnson injects too many moral disclaimers into his script: it's all the railroad's fault.