At 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 7, 1876, eight members of the infamous James-Younger Gang attempted to rob the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota. The local citizenry got wind of the robbery while it was in progress and a fierce shoot-out erupted outside the bank. Two members of the gang—Clell Miller and Bill Chadwell—were killed and Jim and Bob Younger wounded (and later captured, along with brother Cole, the ringleader). A bank employee and a bystander were killed and another bank employee wounded. Frank and Jesse James managed to escape back to Tennessee but, after five years in operation, the James-Younger Gang ceased to exist: an outcome still celebrated in Northfield annually. 104 years after the bungled robbery writer-director Philip Kaufman brought out a film version of the famous raid that is not strictly accurate historically but entirely consistent with the anti-authority zeitgeist of the early Seventies. Paul Frees' sonorous opening voice-over sets the tone: "Even before the wounds of the Civil War had healed in Missouri, the railroads came swarming in to steal the land. Everywhere, men from the railroads were driving poor, defenseless families from their homes. And that's when a fresh wind suddenly began to blow. It was other Clay County farmers, the James and Younger boys, coming to the rescue. They tarred and feathered the railroad men and drove them from the land. From that moment onward, they were outlaws. But the people of Missouri would never forget what the boys had done for them." The laughable notion that Jesse James was a modern Robin Hood originated with James himself, an early adept at public relations, who characterized himself and his cohorts as aggrieved victims of a Radical Republican administration bent on unending persecution of those who had sided with the defeated Confederacy. The newspapers ratified Jesse James's version of himself, which soon passed into enduring myth. In reality James was apolitical and a criminal psychopath to boot. Also worth noting is the fact that the James-Younger gang mostly robbed banks; railroads were only an occasional target of opportunity. Kaufman's film correctly characterizes Jesse James (Robert Duvall) as mean and unstable and Cole Younger (Cliff Robertson) as the real brains of the outfit. Where the film most egregiously errs is in depicting the Northfield raid in Keystone Cops fashion and in characterizing the gang's victims and foes as generally corrupt, cruel, incompetent or cowardly. The outlaws look good by comparison and their enemies get to stand in for an emerging, oppressive corporate establishment (cf. 'Bonnie & Clyde' and 'The Wild Bunch'). VHS (1992) and DVD (2007).
Review of The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid
