I Shot Jesse James
With Preston Foster, Barbara Britton, John Ireland.
US, 1949, 35mm, black & white, 81 min.
Print source: George Eastman Museum
Predicting the cycle of "psychological Westerns" that flourished in the 1940s, I Shot Jesse James also makes clear Fuller's passionate interest in the untold chapters of American history. For his debut feature, Fuller gives fresh perspective to the figure of Jesse James and his tormented assassin Bob Ford, vivid characters offered as complications of founding myths of the West and American masculinity. In I Shot Jesse James, the taming of the West is held up as both a predictable fall from grace and a cautionary tale, a saga of capitalism's inexorable and corrosive rule and chivalry's vainglorious failure. Character actor John Ireland is arguably at his finest, giving real human dimension and sympathy to the tormented, guilt-ridden and luckless Ford.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Pickup on South Street
The Crimson Kimono
The Naked Kiss
Underworld U.S.A.
The Baron of Arizona
Merrill's Marauders
House of Bamboo
Fixed Bayonets!
Forty Guns
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street
A Fuller Life
Run of the Arrow
Street of No Return
The Steel Helmet
The Big Red One
Shock Corridor
Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made
