Willard Parker plays Jesse James, who has settled down and is trying to lead a normal life as Tom Howard with his wife Zee and his son. But he dreams of past problems with the law and fears his days are numbered.
Then old friend Bob Ford comes calling with a potential new friend named Sam Wells. Seems Sam knows of a job in Creede, Colorado, that could yield a tidy $300,000 in gold, enough to set Jesse and his family up for life in a faraway place where U.S. law wouldn’t be a concern.
The deal is too good to pass up, Jesse decides. Now he has to find a dynamite man (Elias Hobbs), a gunman (Arch Clements) and a teamster (Johnny Dorette) to help pull it off.
Turns out the job involves tunneling into a mine someone else owns, right beneath their vein of gold.
Willard Parker as Jesse James, tempted into pursuing one more big payoff in The Great Jesse James Raid (1953)
Jim Bannon as Bob Ford, the man who lures Jesse James out of retirement in the Great Jesse James Raid (1953)
Review:
An interesting film in that Parker’s Jesse James goes off on a Magnificent Seven type of hunt for his specialists, long before that plot device became cliche.
Also interesting in that the film features a pair of real-life star-crossed lovers in Tom Neal and Barbara Payton. Two years earlier, they were at the center of a scandal in which Neal severely beat another of Barbara’s lovers, Franchot Tone. Payton eventually married Tone, but continued an affair with Neal, which ultimately led to a divorce, of course.
Ironically, both of the scenes they are in together in this film turn violent, with Barbara’s character slapping Neal’s on both occasions. Payton eventually became a drunk and prostitute and died at age 39 in 1967; Neal won up serving seven years in prison for manslaughter in the shooting death of his third wife and died a year after being released.
Unfortunately, all that background is more interesting than this film, which finds Jesse’s hand-picked gang with the rather tedious task of digging a mine once they reach their destination. Let’s just say things don’t go exactly as planned.
Wallace Ford as Elias Hobbs and Tom Neal as Arch Clements, two of the gang members Jesse hires in The Great Jesse James Raid (1953)
Barbara Payton as Kate, the saloon girl who gets mixed up with Jesse’s men in The Great Jesse James Raid (1953)
Directed by:
Reginald Le Borg
Cast:
Willard Parker … Jesse James
Barbara Payton … Kate
Tom Neal … Arch Clements
Wallace Ford … Elias Hobbs
Jim Bannon … Bob Ford
James Anderson … Johnny Dorette
Richard Cutting … Sam Wells
Barbara Woodell … Zee James
Runtime: 73 min.
James Anderson as Johnny Dorette, the young man Jesse hires to drive the gold wagon in The Great Jesse James Raid (1953)
Richard Cutting as Sam Wells, the man with a plan to steal gold from a neighboring mine in The Great Jesse James Raid (1953)
Memorable lines:
Jesse James, as Bob Ford make the proposition to rob a mine: “Why pick me?”
Bob: “Because you can get the best men for the jobs. Ones who will stay with it, take chances, who won’t slobber all over themselves or spit up their guts if anything goes wrong.”
Arch Clements: “A bad sign, a bird in the house. Means somebody’s dead.”
Elias Hobbs: “Enough of your witchcraft talk, Brother Arch. Only gives the devil bad ideas.”
Elias Hobbs, offering young Johnny Dorette a shot of whiskey: “Go ahead, take it, boy. Can’t hurt you any more than getting cozy ideas about that girl (Barbara Payton as Kate). Her kind has got more dynamite capped inside her than a stick of giant ‘dan’ sizzling up a fast fuse.”
Arch Clements: “I’ve seen caves in back home in Kentucky like this. They make nice tombs.”
Wallace Ford as dynamite man Elias Hobbs, enjoying luck at cards and the company of a pretty woman in The Great Jesse James Raid (1953)
Barbara Woodell as Zee James with Jesse (Willard Parker), wondering what will happen if he robs again (1953)
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