Todd’s Serial Blog

As the forties were drawing to a close, serials were dropping in proportional quality with each passing year. Republic would try to offset their cost cutting efforts by trying to innovate in other areas. The Adventures of Frank and Jesse James (1948) was a perfect example of this. On the one hand it had some interesting character motivation, but on the other its budget restraints kept it from being a truly effective serial.

Starting right where Jesse James Rides Again (1947) ended, Jesse James (Clayton Moore) returns to Missouri, apparently leaving his sidekick Steve to build a life with Ann in Tennessee. Coming to the Powell ranch, he is greeted with a gun by Jim Powell (Stanley Andrews) and his daughter Judy (Noel Neill) until they recognize him. His brother Frank (Steve Darrell) comes out of hiding.

After the reunion, Jesse tells of his adventures in Tennessee. Doing a good turn for those ranchers has inspired Jesse to try and right some of the wrongs he’s done to people in the past. Jim thinks he can help him in that area. He believes the old silver mine they helped grubstake him in isn’t played out, the vein just being interrupted by a rock formation. If they could get the money to work it, Jesse and Frank could use their share to pay back their past victims and the current victims of crimes being blamed on them. Jesse thinks it’s a great idea and plans to go see about getting a bank loan from old family friend Thatcher (Sam Flint).

The next day Jesse and Frank are shocked by the hostile reception Thatcher gives them. He shows them a note demanding twenty thousand dollars from the bank or else, signed Jesse James. Jesse denies having sent the note. Just then two outlaws enter with guns drawn, proclaiming themselves to be Frank and Jesse James. This doesn’t sit well with the real James brothers, who whip out their guns and make short work of the outlaws by shooting the guns out of their hands and then beating them both to a pulp.

Sheriff Towey (House Peters, Jr.) arrives and is introduced to Jesse and Frank as John Howard and Bob Carroll by a grateful Thatcher. After the bank robbers are carted off to jail, Jesse explains their plan to pay people back. Thatcher thinks it’s a good plan. He can’t advance any money until the mine can prove it can produce any silver. He recommends a noted and well regarded mining engineer Amos Ramsey (John Crawford) to make an examination of the mine.

Ramsey goes to the mine and notices something interesting about the rock outcropping that caused the silver mine to shut down. Jim sets off a small charge to blow it out of the way so they can see if there is silver past it. He is shocked and pleased to discover that behind it isn’t silver, but gold. Ramsey isn’t surprised, having suspected it. Faced with the vast wealth in front him, Ramsey succumbs to greed and bashes Jim’s head in with a rock. Setting off another charge to bury the gold, Ramsey reports that Jim tripped and was killed by the initial explosion.

Jesse and Frank decide to come out of hiding and help Judy get the mine opened and running under the guise of her visiting cousins Howard and Carroll. Ramsey is hired as foreman to oversee the mining operations. He wastes little time in contacting an outlaw he had had a passing acquaintance with in earlier days, Rafe Henley (George J. Lewis), who is surprised to hear from Ramsey as he had always known him to be straight. Telling him about the gold in the mine, Henley immediately throws in with Ramsey.

In order avoid suspicion, Ramsey has to get an ore sample together for an assay. Ramsey gives the sample to Judy to take on a stage to the assayer’s office, while Henley is sent to stop the stage and steal the sample as part of a hold up. Henley and his henchman Steele (Tom Steele) stop the stage and pass themselves off as part of the James gang. Taking the stage, with Judy along, Henley heads off for his hideout.

The stage driver gets to town and tells of the hold up. Jesse heads off in pursuit, cutting across country to catch up with the stage. After exchanging gunfire with the outlaws, Jesse manages to get aboard the stage and fights with Steele inside the coach. The horses break loose from the stage, taking Henley with them. The coach, running wild, goes over a cliff….

The early chapters show some interesting nuances you don’t normally see in a serial. The beginning has the main character referring to events in the previous serial, with the exception of the first two Flash Gordon serials and the Don Winslow’s, this is an unheard of plot device, most serials in a series are completely stand alone affairs and just use the same characters in new adventures, like Dick Tracy or Superman. Most interesting is that the previous adventure has inspired the action of this serial, helping the people in the previous serial encourages Jesse James to do the same thing in his old stomping grounds.

Another interesting aspect of the serial is the set up of the villain. Usually a serial starts with the bad guy having already set up his criminal enterprise, or discovering something hidden on the heroes property and then bringing his gang in to handle the rough stuff. But here, the villain is not a criminal, he’s never done a crooked thing in his life. But when faced with all of that unlimited wealth, he snaps and commits murder.

An interesting twist is that the now crooked engineer, not knowing any bad guys, has to contact an outlaw he had known about from his old stomping grounds to actually put together his gang. Because of this, the set up between the two characters is unique, with them acting as co-villains instead of villain and henchman. Usually just the main villain comes up with all of the ideas, but in this serial the two men discuss their plans and both contribute ideas to their various schemes.  Eventually they begin to act like friends and exhibit the same kind of closeness to each other in their scenes the heroes showed from the beginning of Chapter One.

Unfortunately these innovations are not able to overcome the staleness of the action due to the padding out of the serial with stock footage. It was with this production that Republic heroes began wearing the distinctive outfits from previous productions so that vast amounts of footage from the earlier film could be inserted for the action scenes. Halfway through Chapter One Moore and Darrell climb into the outfits worn by Don “Red” Barry and Hal Taliaferro in Adventures of Red Ryder (1940). From that moment on either the cliffhanger ending or the middle section action scenes for the episodes would be taken from that serial.

Even the plot points from the earlier film are used in the set ups to insert the footage, though slightly rearranged, such as the initial stagecoach crash cliffhanger from Chapter One. When money is needed in Chapter Five Jesse enters a stagecoach race so that that the entire stage coach race sequence can be used right down to the cliffhanger of the hero being lassoed around the neck and pulled off the stage. When the outlaws try to take out the water supply for the mine in Chapter Seven, out trots the fight scenes from Red Ryder where the hero tries unsuccessfully to prevent the destruction of their water tower.

Not to say the serial doesn’t have some good original cliffhangers. A standout is when the hero appears to get skewered on a spike during a fight in a barn in Chapter Ten, and one where the heroine is shot while the hero and villain fight over a gun in Chapter Twelve. They just aren’t on the same scale as the ones using old footage.

An unusual cliffhanger is in Chapter Nine. A lawsuit has been brought about to stop work on the mine until their claim can be verified, Jesse has to find a witness and get him to the bank before the judge can read the original bank notes with Jesse and Frank’s real names on them. As Jesse is racing to town, the judge (Gene Roth) fumbles for his glasses for a few moments, finds them and starts to read the document, fade to black. I’m of two minds about this one. On the one hand it is the highly suspenseful type of none explosion laden cliffhanger I like. The flip side is the absurdity of signing their real names to the document. I get very angry at the utter stupidity of these intelligent characters for doing this. Why not just use the aliases the banker gave them? It’s not like Thatcher isn’t already doing something less than ethical by dealing with notorious outlaws in the first place. A more reasonable plot line would have been that the brothers have to forestall an investigation as their guises wouldn’t stand up to too close a scrutiny by the law.

The acting is all top notch here.  Clayton Moore is dead on perfect as Jesse James.  He has a nice easy going laid back air until the action starts at which point he gets a steely glint in his eye that rivals the steely eye glare that Tom Tyler used so well throughout his career.  One of the more interesting aspects of Moore’s performance is the sense of humor he brings to his reformed outlaw.  When the bad guys start throwing his name around to frighten him with, he starts out being annoyed, but after a few chapters he begins to be amused by it and starts whipping sarcastic comments back at them.  Funniest is after a fight in Chapter Four, Moore is rubbing his shoulder and Darrell asks him if he is alright.   Morre replies, “Yeah, I just must be getting old.”  Not the usual self deprecating comment you hear from a serial hero.

Darrell is a complimentary fit to Moore’s more action oriented hero, playing the smarter brother.  He is the one who comes up with most of their plans to keep the mine going and actually figures out who is behind all of their trouble.  He effectively mirrors Moore’s easy going attitude, while showing he can handle himself but is less likely to dive into battle like Jesse is, preferring to think his way out of problems, though he can shoot and fight with the best of them.

Noel Neill shines in the role of Judy Powell.  She is tough, no nonsense and full of spunk, sort of a Lois Lane of the Prairie sans reporter job.  One of the most under appreciated actresses of her day, she believably portrays a very feminine woman who is not above whipping out a gun when necessary, still appearing dainty when blasting away.  She is also the only actress I have ever seen who gets more attractive looking the angrier she gets (probably why she is the most beloved of Lois Lanes).

As good as the leads are, the villains are even better.  Before becoming a top henchman at Republic, and top sidekick at Columbia, John Crawford was given this one shot at being a head villain and pulls it off nicely.  He effectively portrays a good man gone bad.  When the gold is first discovered, you can seen him thinking things through, weighing his options, before finally coming to terms with what he wants to do and then kills for the first time.  From there Crawford is a bit unsure of himself in the early chapters, but by Chapter Three he becomes more self assured.  It is a fascinating performance as you watch him gradually strip away more and more of his humanity as he becomes increasingly ruthless with each set back, while still maintaining a believable guise of helpful friend in front of the heroes.

Not to be out done, George J. Lewis gives an excellent performance, equaling Moore in the laid back department, but mixing it with a cockiness that says he is the best and knows it.  One of his best scenes is in Chapter Thirteen when he realizes just who it is he has been trading bullets and fists with throughout the serial and all the cockiness drains out of him then demonstates he is smart by immediately telling Crawford he’s quitting.  It’s a nice scene with Crawford having to practically bribe him into staying.

So while not the best of the late era Republics, it has some good aspects mixed in with the tired rehash plot.  But more importantly it has Clayton Moore in his second most popular Western character, so that makes it worth while right there.

Tags: Reviews //