This western virtually canonises notorious outlaw Jesse James, here sympathetically portrayed by Tyrone Power as a glamorous Robin Hood-style figure of the old west, riding out to right wrongs alongside his brother Frank, played by Henry Fonda. The rich 20th Century-Fox Technicolor is superb, and whether the real Jesse was as dashing or handsome as Power is irrelevant: this is stirring stuff, brilliantly directed by Henry King, one of the great masters of on-screen Americana, though would it have looked any different if the great John Ford had made it? Nunnally Johnson's screenplay ignores most of the facts, but who cares. The legend lives on.

After railroad agents forcibly evict the James family from their family farm, Jesse and Frank turn to banditry for revenge.