There's no sense in bashing the film for it's historical inaccuracies, most of these early Westerns took liberal license with presenting the facts and went for action instead. It appears the title of the story is a play on a celebrated event in the history of The James/Younger Gang, that of the Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, also memorialized in the 1972 film of the same name starring Cliff Robertson and Robert Duvall. The failed bank robbery proved to be the undoing of the infamous outlaws, eventually leading to the capture of The Youngers.
The film takes an interesting approach in presenting the James Brothers that in some respects is accurate. Frank (Wendell Corey), as the older brother, tries to be the voice of reason among his outlaw brethren while taking a cautious approach to their planned robberies. In real life, Jesse (Macdonald Carey) had an outgoing personality and a style that made him likable, but that charisma never really comes through here. The closest representation of Jesse as a sociable bandit was when he handed a woman back her purse during one of their robberies while getting off a train.
As Major Trowbridge, Ward Bond obviously represents Allan Pinkerton of the famed Pinkerton Detective Agency, who held a furious grudge against the James Brothers and relentlessly hunted the Gang for personal as well as professional reasons. One of the cooler elements in the story turned out to be the staging of the horses coming off the railroad car to pursue the outlaws. Watching it will immediately call to mind a similar scene in the 1969 Western "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid". I'm curious if the director of that picture, George Roy Hill, ever saw this one because he made a conscious decision to film his scene by having horse and rider emerge from the train car on the run. He could only do that by keeping both doors of the car open so the horses could get a running start, though the viewer is never in on that secret while watching. One has to admit the latter film had the more exciting presentation.
There are quite a few other scenes that appear to be a blend of fact and fiction throughout the story but no need to get waylaid by all of them. I had more than a comical reaction to the name of one of the later outlaws who came on board near the close of the movie. He was approached by Trowbridge with a ten thousand dollar bounty to turn in the James Brothers, but passed on the offer by pointing the Major to Bob Ford. All the while I kept thinking to myself, if you're a guy, how do you go through life with a name like Dick Liddil?
The film takes an interesting approach in presenting the James Brothers that in some respects is accurate. Frank (Wendell Corey), as the older brother, tries to be the voice of reason among his outlaw brethren while taking a cautious approach to their planned robberies. In real life, Jesse (Macdonald Carey) had an outgoing personality and a style that made him likable, but that charisma never really comes through here. The closest representation of Jesse as a sociable bandit was when he handed a woman back her purse during one of their robberies while getting off a train.
As Major Trowbridge, Ward Bond obviously represents Allan Pinkerton of the famed Pinkerton Detective Agency, who held a furious grudge against the James Brothers and relentlessly hunted the Gang for personal as well as professional reasons. One of the cooler elements in the story turned out to be the staging of the horses coming off the railroad car to pursue the outlaws. Watching it will immediately call to mind a similar scene in the 1969 Western "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid". I'm curious if the director of that picture, George Roy Hill, ever saw this one because he made a conscious decision to film his scene by having horse and rider emerge from the train car on the run. He could only do that by keeping both doors of the car open so the horses could get a running start, though the viewer is never in on that secret while watching. One has to admit the latter film had the more exciting presentation.
There are quite a few other scenes that appear to be a blend of fact and fiction throughout the story but no need to get waylaid by all of them. I had more than a comical reaction to the name of one of the later outlaws who came on board near the close of the movie. He was approached by Trowbridge with a ten thousand dollar bounty to turn in the James Brothers, but passed on the offer by pointing the Major to Bob Ford. All the while I kept thinking to myself, if you're a guy, how do you go through life with a name like Dick Liddil?