A friend of mine claims to love movies, but once, when watching a King Kong remake, as the giant gorilla crushed a ship with a giant, hairy paw, he exclaimed "A gorilla can't do that!" It seems to me that most of us do not go to films for an actual history lesson, much less for accuracy, but for a well-make story enacted with enthusiasm by a well-chosen cast, for a good soundtrack and often, brilliant color and startling scenery.
I was highly entertained by Kansas Raiders, accepting it was a Hollywood western, full of well-made action sequences, nicely drawn characters and some semblance of conflict. There are so many interpretations of Jesse and Frank James in films, and so many theories about what kind of men they really were that I have stopped worrying about which one interpretation might be correct; I'll go to scholarly works of history for that, should it be necessary.
This said, Kansas Raiders is an action-packed film with Audie Murphy, certainly watching in this early effort, and a magnetic performance by Brian Donlevy as Quantrill, dictator of a brutal army (I must admit I felt sorry for Donlevy the actor, as all through the film, indoors and out, riding a horse in the blazing sun on dusty trails, he wears what appears to be a heavy wool confederate uniform with gold braid and a high collar). It's fun to see Tony Curtis in his sixth Hollywood film, in a good part of his scenes, playing plaintive folk songs on a harmonica). And there's Richard Arlen, a star in his own right twenty years earlier. as a Union officer.
So there's all kinds of reasons to enjoy this Western, should you wish to. If your looking for real-life in a Western movie, you can likely skip about 70 percent of the Hollywood product from the 40's and 50's. Otherwise, there's a gold mine to be discovered!
Review of Kansas Raiders
