After the murder of his brother (Tyrone Power in footage from 1939's
JESSE JAMES), his brother Frank (Henry Fonda) goes after Jesse's murderers, the Ford Brothers (John Carradine, Charles Tannen). While I'm a great admirer of Fritz Lang in both his German silents and Hollywood period, I'm not a fan of his westerns. While I haven't seen
WESTERN UNION, I've never understood the cult status of
RANCHO NOTORIOUS. But at least
RANCHO NOTORIOUS was lively and never dull. This highly fictionalized and historically inaccurate story of Frank James is pretty much a stock western that even the most staunch of Lang supporters would have a hard time defending. The most interesting aspect about it is a brief moral conundrum when Frank chooses to go after the man who killed his brother rather than save the life of the black farmhand (Ernest Whitman) innocently sentenced to hang as Frank's accomplice to a murder. A good half hour is devoted to one of the most dull trials ever put on film. The film features lovely Gene Tierney, rather colorless, in her film debut as a feminist ingenue. The three strip Technicolor cinematography by George Barnes (
REBECCA) is quite handsome though. With Jackie Cooper, Henry Hull, Donald Meek and Barbara Pepper.
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