Western Wednesdays: Kansas Raiders (1950)

     Kansas Raiders was released on November 15th, 1950. Directed by Ray Enright, it stars Audie Murphy as Jesse James, who joins up with William Quantrill (Brian Donlevy) and his band of Confederate raiders during the American Civil War.

     Kansas Raiders is not a good western. Though the story shows promise, the quality of the writing simply isn't there. When Jesse and his friends (Frank James (Richard Long), Cole and Jim Younger (James Best and Dewey Martin), and Kit Dalton (Tony Curtis)) first meet Quantrill they are idealistic. Jesse lost his family during a raid by a band of Missouri Jayhawkers and wants revenge. He believes that Quantrill is a brave and honorable man but is in for a rude awakening when he goes on his first raid and witnesses the raiders murdering innocent farmers. He is initially appalled by this and decides to leave but Quantrill convinces him to stay, assuring Jesse that that kind of behavior won't occur again. Why Jesse chooses to believe this is unclear. Perhaps he just has no place else to go.

     In any case he remains with Quantrill, despite the fact that the same kind of atrocities are committed again and again. In the end, when the Union army finally catches up with Quantrill, only Jesse and his friends remain with him. Quantrill, in a final act of redemption (I guess) sacrifices himself so they can escape. After this we are told (through a narration) that Jesse and his friends went on to pursue a life of crime.

     Again, this could be an interesting story, as Jesse slowly descends from an justifiable desire for revenge into becoming a cold-blooded killer. But this doesn't really happen. Instead he continues to follow Quantrill, despite objecting to his methods, for no apparent reason. There is a romantic subplot between Jesse and Kate Clarke (Marguerite Chapman) who is a sort of adopted daughter for Quantrill. At one point they consider running away together but they choose not to out of some misplaced loyalty for Quantrill (I guess).

     The acting in this film is pretty bland but I can't blame the actors for failing to breath life into such badly written characters. This is really too bad as some fine actors (Audie Murphy, Scott Brady, Tony Curtis) are wasted in boring roles. Ray Enright's direction too, is strictly by-the-numbers though Irving Glassberg's technicolor cinematography is nice to look at.

     In the end Kansas Raiders is a dull, frustrating western film. Sadly I can't recommend this one folks.

Score: 4/10