Western Double Feature: Headin' For Trouble (1931) / Jesse James Under The Black Flag (1930) – DVD

HEADIN' FOR TROUBLE (1931): "Cyclone" Crosby arrives at the Palace Saloon looking for work. He catches "Boss" Morgan trying to cheat elderly Tom Courtney out of his property during a crooked poker game. As a show of thanks, Tom offers Cyclone a job on his ranch. He explains that cattle rustlers have been terrorizing all the local ranchers except for Morgan. Realizing that Morgan must be their leader, Cyclone decides to stay on and bring an end to the rustlers' racket - while keeping Tom from gambling away the ranch again.

Headin' For Trouble star Bob Custer (1898-1974) started out as a real-life cowboy. Leaving the ranch to perform in rodeo shows, Custer moved to Hollywood in 1924 when he realized that acting would be more profitable (and less dangerous). Fascinated by Tinseltown, he even acted in non-Western parts using the name "Raymond Glenn". Tripped up by insecurities about his speaking voice, Custer made relatively few talkies before retiring from show business in 1938. Using his engineering degree, he found great success as a building inspector in Los Angeles.

JESSE JAMES UNDER THE BLACK FLAG (1930): In 1921, Jesse E. James, Jr., the son of the notorious criminal, agreed to portray his famous father in two low-budget productions: Jesse James Under the Black Flag and Jesse James as the Outlaw. Taken together, the two films told the story of James' life from his beginnings as a member of Quantrill's Raiders, a guerilla force that fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War "under the black flag", to his subsequent life as the most hunted outlaw in American history. Most of his felonies are disingenuously shown to be elaborate frame-ups, with James' only real crimes committed in the name of the greater good. Neither movie did particularly well with audiences, probably because it was hard to believe 46-year old Jesse Jr. with his receding hairline and flabby physique could possibly be his father in his late teens and early twenties. That didn't stop the producers from editing the two films together in 1930 as simply Jesse James Under the Black Flag, adding narration, sound effects, and a synchronized music score. A framing sequence shows Jesse Jr. telling the "true" story of his father ("based upon facts") to his daughter's prospective suitor (one can only assume he didn't come back for a second date.) Though Jesse Jr. was purportedly brokenhearted over the picture's poor performance, it was nevertheless influential on the way his father would be depicted on the silver screen going forward. Future movies, from 1939's Jesse James with Tyrone Power to 1966's Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, would depict Jesse James as an altruistic folk hero, not the self-serving robber he was in real life.

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