Cultural depictions of Jesse James

Cultural depictions of Jesse James appear in various types of media, including literature, video games, comics, music, stage productions, films, television, and radio. James is variously described as an American outlaw, bank and train robber, guerrilla, and leader of the James–Younger Gang. After the American civil war, as members of various gangs of outlaws, Jesse and Frank James robbed banks, stagecoaches, and trains across the Midwest, gaining national fame and even sympathy despite their crimes.[1] James became an iconic figure from the era, and his life has been dramatized and memorialized numerous times.[2]

A dime novel featuring Jesse James from 1901

Literature

The James brothers became a staple in dime novels of the era, peaking in the 1880s following Jesse's death. James has often been used as a fictional character in many Western novels, including some published while he was alive. For instance, in Willa Cather's My Ántonia, the narrator reads a book entitled 'Life of Jesse James' – probably referring to a dime novel.

In Charles Portis's 1968 novel True Grit, U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn describes fighting with Cole Younger and Frank James for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Long after his adventure with Mattie Ross, Cogburn ends his days in a traveling road show with the aged Cole Younger and Frank James.

John Newman Edwards, editor of the Kansas City Times), was largely responsible for creating the legend of Jesse James and his fellow Confederate guerrillas.

During his travel to the "Wilde West", Oscar Wilde visited Jesse James' hometown in Missouri. Learning that James had been assassinated by his own gang member, "an event that sent the town into mourning and scrambling to buy Jesse's artifacts", and heightened the "romantic appeal of the social outcast" in his mind, Wilde wrote in a letter home that: "Americans are certainly great hero-worshippers, and always take [their] heroes from the criminal classes."[3]

Video games

In Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure, the characters must give an Uzi to Jesse James.[4][5] Jesse James has been playable in two games Gunfighter: The Legend of Jesse James for PlayStation[6] and Gunfighter II: Revenge of Jesse James for PlayStation 2.[7] He appears as an antagonist in Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (2013),[8] where he is faced down against Silas Greaves in a duel.[9] Jesse James' severed hand (or "shooting hand") makes various appearances throughout the Sam & Max point-and-click adventure game adaptations, often used as a solution to in-game puzzles.

Comics

In 1969, artist Morris and writer René Goscinny (co-creator of Asterix) had Lucky Luke confronting Jesse James, his brother Frank, and Cole Younger. The adventure poked fun at the image of Jesse as a new Robin Hood. Although he passes himself off as such and does indeed steal from the rich (who are, logically, the only ones worth stealing from), he and his gang take turns being "poor," thus keeping the loot for themselves. Frank quotes from Shakespeare, and Younger is portrayed as a fun-loving joker, full of good humor. One critic has likened this version of the James brothers as "intellectuals bandits, who won't stop theorizing their outlaw activities and hear themselves talk."[10] In the end, the at-first-cowed people of a town fight back against the James gang and send them packing in tar and feathers.

Music
Main article: Jesse James in music

Stage productions

The musical melodrama "Jesse," written by Bob and Marion Moulton with lyrics by Prairie Home Companion writer/performer Vern Sutton and music by William Huckaby and Donna Paulsen,[11] has since 1976[12] (the centennial of the James-Younger gang's Northfield bank raid) traditionally been performed in Northfield, Minnesota, during the town's annual Defeat of Jesse James Days.[13]

Films

There have been numerous portrayals of Jesse James in film and television, including two wherein Jesse James, Jr. depicts his father. In many of the films, James is portrayed as a Robin Hood-like character.[14]

Television
  • The actor Lee Van Cleef played Jesse James in a 1954 episode of Jim Davis's syndicated television series, Stories of the Century, the first western series to win an Emmy Award.
  • In an episode of The Twilight Zone, "Showdown with Rance McGrew", Jesse James (played by Arch Johnson) confronts McGrew, an actor who stars in a TV western, about the shabby way he and other historical outlaws are portrayed on the program. The episode was written by Rod Serling, and originally aired on February 2, 1962, during The Twilight Zone's third season.[21]
  • The ABC series The Legend of Jesse James aired during the 1965–1966 television season, with Christopher Jones as Jesse, Allen Case as Frank James, Ann Doran as Zerelda Cole James Samuel, Robert J. Wilke as Marshal Sam Corbett, and John Milford as Cole Younger.
  • In the episode of My Favorite Martian, entitled "That Time Machine Is Waking Up That Old Gang of Mine" (aired November 21, 1965) Jesse James (Mort Mills) and Frank James (L.Q. Jones) are accidentally transported to Tim's apartment.
  • In the episode of Spider-Man, entitled "The Night of the Villains/Here Comes Trubble" (aired November 18, 1967) Jesse James (voiced by Jack Mather) is one of the wax dummies created by the villain Parafino for his robberies.
  • In the episode of The Brady Bunch titled "Bobby's Hero" (aired February 2, 1973), Bobby Brady, much to his parents' dismay, has idolized the exploits of Jesse James (played in a dream sequence by Gordon Devol), leading them to try to dissuade him, including tracking down a descendant of one of James' victims (Burt Mustin) to talk to Bobby about the unseen dark and villainous side of the outlaw, as movies and stories of that era glamourized James's exploits, almost portraying him as a folk hero.
  • In the episode of Little House on the Prairie titled "The Aftermath" (aired November 7, 1977), Jesse (Dennis Rucker) and Frank James (John Bennett Perry) took refuge in Walnut Grove after a failed robbery attempt.
  • In an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard titled "Go West, Young Dukes" (aired November 16, 1984), a flashback to 1872 shows the main characters' great-grandparents dealing with the James brothers, with Paul Koslo as Jesse and Nick Benedict as Frank.
  • In the American Western series The Young Riders (1989–1992), Jesse James is portrayed by actor Christopher Pettiet. He appeared in 17 episodes.
  • In the episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman titled "Tempus Fugitive" (aired March 26, 1995), Superman (Dean Cain) meets Jesse (Don Swayze) and Frank James (Josh Devane) in 1866.
  • In Episode 33 of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction in a segment titled "Mysterious Strangers" aired in (2002), a story is told about two men in 1870 who take refuge on a rainy night in an old widow's house. While there they find out that she is about to lose her home to foreclosure. The strangers disappear in the night, leaving her $900 to give to the banker, only to rob the banker of their own money after he retrieved it from the woman the next morning. The strangers, at the end of the story, turn out to be Frank and Jesse James. Beyond Belief purports that the story is documented and true.
  • An episode of Deadliest Warrior which aired on (2010) on "Spike TV" features the Jesse James gang vs. the Al Capone gang. The main weapons used by Jesse James was the Colt .45, the Pistol Whip, the Winchester rifle, and the Bowie Knife. The Jesse James gang came out victorious in the simulated match.
  • John C. MacDonald plays a fictionalized Jesse James in the The Pinkertons, where he serves as a recurring antagonist. In the series premiere, the main characters, William Pinkerton and Kate Warne, along with Allen Pinkerton, are contracted to track down the culprits of a railroad robbery. A young man involved with the bushwhackers is revealed to be a young Jesse James, who reluctantly flees when the leader tells him to run after a gunfight. In a later episode, he schemes with a fictional Belle Starr (in which he is depicted as inspiring her turn to the outlaw life) but is apprehended by William Pinkerton. In the series finale, he and his brother, Frank James, plot assassinations throughout Kansas City while being pursued by the Pinkertons.
  • David H. Stevens starred as Jesse James in the 2016 AMC documentary The American West, narrated by Bert Thomas Morris.
  • In an episode of Timeless titled "The Murder of Jesse James" (aired January 23, 2017), Jesse James is saved from being killed by the Fords but is eventually killed by one of the main protagonists.
  • In the Pokémon anime series, two of the main antagonists are named "Jessie" and "James", a woman and a man working for the criminal organization "Team Rocket" alongside their partner Meowth. They are named after Jesse James in the English localization, as the original Japanese version had them named after historical rival swordsmen Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojirō, respectively.

Radio

The killing of Jesse James was depicted on the CBS radio show Crime Classics on July 20, 1953, in the episode entitled "The Death of a Picture Hanger". The episode featured Clayton Post as Jesse James, Paul Frees as Charley Ford, and Sam Edwards as Robert Ford.

References
  1. Hayworth, Wil (September 17, 2007). "A story of myth, fame, Jesse James". Seattle Times. Archived from the original on December 29, 2008. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
  2. Stiles, T.J. (2002). Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. Knopf Publishing. ISBN 0-375-40583-6.
  3. Wellington, Jan. "Oscar Wilde's West". Literary Traveler. Retrieved August 27, 2009.
  4. WLau (June 28, 2001). "Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure". GameFAQs. GameSpot. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  5. "Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure". GiantBomb. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  6. Davis, Ryan (January 11, 2002). "Gunfighter: The Legend of Jesse James Review". GameSpot. CBS Interactive Inc. Retrieved September 3, 2012.
  7. Hayball, Anthony (June 15, 2013). "Gunfighter II is simply just another shallow Time Crisis knock off that you should avoid". GameSpot. CBS Interactive Inc. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  8. Ashcraft, Brian (9 June 2012). "New Call of Juarez Is Called "Gunslinger", But You're a Bounty Hunter". Kotaku. Gizmodo Media Group. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  9. Rath, Robert (25 July 2013). "History and Legend in Call of Juarez: Gunslinger". Escapist Magazine. Enthusiast Gaming LLC. Archived from the original on 11 March 2018. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  10. Fans de Lucky Luke website." Archived 2008-07-05 at the Wayback Machine fandeluckyluke.com. (in French)
  11. "Lockwood Theater Company". Archived from the original on October 8, 2011. Retrieved September 12, 2011.
  12. "Jesse James musical returns to Northfield". MinnPost.com. August 31, 2010. Archived from the original on January 12, 2011. Retrieved September 12, 2011.
  13. "The Defeat of Jesse James Days Celebration". DJJD Committee, Inc. Retrieved September 12, 2011.
  14. "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". The Times. London. November 29, 2007. Retrieved December 7, 2008.
  15. Williamson, Jerry Wayne (1995). Hillbillyland: What the Movies Did to the Mountains and what the Mountains Did to the Movies. UNC Press Books. p. 283. ISBN 9780807845035.
  16. Armstrong, Richard B.; Armstrong, Mary Willems (15 November 2000). Encyclopedia of Film Themes, Settings and Series. McFarland Publishing. p. 148. ISBN 9780786445721.
  17. Stephens, Stephanie (August 2015). "J.D. Souther. At Long Last, One of America's Best Songwriters Breaks Decades of Silence" (PDF). StephanieStephens.com. p. 4. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  18. Ebert, Roger (17 August 2001). "American Outlaws". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  19. Rafferty, Terrence (16 September 2007). "Jesse James, an Outlaw for All Seasons". The New York Times Company. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  20. "Review: Assassination of Jesse James" Archived 2012-02-29 at the Wayback Machine, Eric James website
  21. Zicree, Marc Scott (1982). The Twilight Zone Companion.
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