The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

(Some Spoilers) Having had his fill of robbing banks and shooting people as a member of the notorious James Gang young Robert Ford, John Ireland, only wants to get himself a piece of land that he can farm and live with his actress/singer girlfriend Cynthy Waters, Barbara Britton.Having no real money and being always on the run from the law Robert sees that a life with Cynthy is nothing but a pipe dream. In him not being able to care for here as well, in being a wanted man, putting her life, as well as his, in danger. It's when Robert sees an ad in the local papers offering a $10,000.00 reward, as well as total amnesty from the law, in bringing Jesse James, Reed Hadley, to the bar of justice dead or alive that a light bulb suddenly lights up in his head.Planning to off his boss Jesse James but not really having he heart or guts to do it Robert finally catches Jesse off-guard as he turned his back on him while adjusting a picture in his living-room. Robert's plan works perfectly as he blasts Jesse from behind and thus becoming eligible for the $10,000.00 reward.What the not so on the ball Robert soon finds out in that he gets stiffed by the authorities by getting only $500.00 of the $10,000.00 that he expected due to a slight technicality as well as becoming the most hated man in the west. That's in Robert being the man who shot the great Jesse James in the back! Not in a fair fight where he met the legendary bank robbing gunman face to face in the town square at high noon!What's worse for Robert is that his perfumed and rosy girlfriend Cynthy dropped him like a bag smelly horse manure when she found out that he murdered Jesse James whom she always thought that he was, by being so close to him, his best friend! And far worse then that is that Cynthy is now in love with John Kelly, Preston Foster, a sneaky sort of guy who was always after her by posing as a talent agent who can open doors, in the theater business, for her.Of course Robert, in being overly stupid or just plain love-sick, doesn't know that Cynthy dropped until much later in the film. Which leads to a showdown with Kelly in the town square but not at high noon but at sunset where he hopes he's be invisible to the naked, or Kelly's, eye.With the exception of the beginning and end of "I Shot Jesse James" that rest of the film tries to make Robert Ford into a truly tragic figure who got caught up in him being a member of the James gang who ended up corrupting him. It was that fact that director Samuel Fuller wanted to bring out in the movie in showing the audience that the great Jesse James was nothing but a murderous, some 30 years before the name was even coined, gangster who got just what he deserved! Even if it was a bullet in the back by one of his fellow gang members from a gun that he gave him for birthday present!

Sam Fuller wrote and directed this unusual version of the Jesse James story from the perspective of his murderer, the "cowardly" Robert Ford (John Ireland). Although Ireland is billed beneath 30s oater star Preston Foster ("Outcasts of Poker Flat") and his love interest Cynthy played by Barbara Britton, he's definitely the star of this show and it's the story of Ford and not James or any other character. In fact James is shown as something of a trusting simpleton -- unless you want to dig into the possibility that's implied in some of the film's images that James and Ford are lovers. In fact if you've watched to the very end there's sort of a stark recognition there depending on how you see it. But there's a definite note of tenderness when James touches Ford's injured shoulder, and then there's that scene where James has Ford scrub his back in the tub....There's a lot of interesting character work from Ireland, who doesn't do that well with the earlier scenes like where he's supposed to be dreaming of his freedom, but who kicks into high gear as soon as his lady-love seems to reject him. Ireland is very convincing at conveying passion and also at playing a guy who's trying hard to hide his passion. That's never more clear than in the great scene when a wandering musician plays the song about "the dirty little coward Robert Ford" for him in the bar. I also really liked the scene with he and Foster when he held back from getting involved in the bar fight until the other man drew a gun.Foster himself isn't given nearly as much to do in the film but he was always a solid screen presence, he's convincingly grizzled and world-weary. A lot of times in these types of movies the Foster character would have ended up getting the girl, but things are a bit more unclear in this story. We don't get the sense that there's really much chemistry between them. Britton's work is pretty good I thought. She convinced me that her character didn't really know what she wanted.Good B movie, glad to finally get a chance to see it.

It's one of the oldest Western stories: Jesse James was a big-time outlaw, robbing banks left and right, alongside his gang, including Robert Ford. One day, upon hearing of the huge bounty (and possibility of amnesty for anyone in the gang) for Jesse's murder, Ford took it upon himself to kill him so that he could be free and clear to mary his would-be wife. But things didn't quite turn out right afterwords, and Ford was considered more-so a coward, a traitor for doing this act, and any gunslinger who could gun Ford down would then be seen as the baddest dude in the west. At least, that's the legend anyway that comes out of the main plot. But there's more to it, at least under the surface, that Samuel Fuller gets to in his take on the legend of one man's existential downfall from killing his best friend, who happened to be the most feared- and yet most admired- bank robber in America for a short while. Fuller might be asking why he was admired, when he didn't do anything that really merited praise only in hindsight. There's a sense of pure melodrama, brimming with acting that is typical for the budget, but somehow Fuller brings out the best in what might be a little limited in the character actors.John Ireland says a lot in the understated expressions on his face, the tense feeling of rejection from the only one he can get close to- once Jesse is out of the picture- and likewise Cynthy (Barbara Britton) is very good at doing the 'acting-concerned' woman that is reluctant to be on Ford's sleeve. It's all the more compelling because Fuller could easily make the direction more into a black and white category, that Ford is bad like Jesse was, and Cynthy is more than in her reasoning for not wanting to marry him. But even in the pulpy world of Jesse James and Robert Ford, there is room for compromise. I liked seeing the scenes where Ford goes through the humiliating act of doing a theater re-enactment of the killing scene, but suddenly seeing in a vision the actual act he performed superimposed over the pantomime. And, immediately after, as one of the very best scenes in the film, a traveling singer who sings a song terrified in Ford's face about how much of a traitor he was for killing such a man like Jesse James.It's a sharp script considering what Fuller would have to work with, but it's also the simplicity of his craft (it might be one of those genre films where the style is so stripped down to bare essentials with necessary close-ups, consistent medium shots, that when something 'stylistic' happens like in the last shootout between Kelly and Ford that it is shocking), how Fuller pushes it into looking like a tale that on the surface as a conventional feature. But watch how the suddenness of violence sparks up interest in the craft, how the opening bank robbery is timed and shot with the same level- or even more- tension than your average heist thriller. Or in the actual infamous scene itself, which is preceded by Ford getting a chance beforehand when James was in the bath, and the cut-aways to the POV at the back. It's bold-faced type through a crisp full-frame lens.And while Fuller would still go on to make greater films, I Shot Jesse James is a fantastic prototype for a great career, where history merges with the human process of change, and how love, however a typical thing in a triangle situation, complicates even the strongest of men.

*Mild Spoilers Within* This film is an interesting character study of Robert Ford (Ireland), the man who shot Jesse James. After shooting his best friend in the back for love, he must live with what he has done. Ireland is great as the remorseful, love-sick Ford. This is a neat first film by Sam Fuller, a newspaper man at heart. And you can definitely tell he likes the newspaper. He shows at least three sequences of headlines of newspapers to fill space in the narrative (the classic "spinning paper"). We can also see early on in his career that Fuller loves to mess with the audience. It's a very entertaining trick. For instance, after Ford has been shot at by the boy trying to become famous, a rider comes along shooting his gun. We think someone else is shooting at Ford. However, the rider is only excited because silver has been found in Colorado. I love how he plays with the audience! Fuller enjoys making you think for a split second that something bad is about to happen and then reveal that he's just joking around. He does this countless times throughout the film. Check this out if you want to see an unconventional western from the 40s. No classic-style here, just the beginning of a great independent director! 8/10