Mon 15 Apr 2019
A Western Movie Review: BELLE STARR (1941).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western movies[4] Comments
BELLE STARR. 20th Century Fox, 1941. Randolph Scott, Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, John Shepperd, Chill Wills, Louise Beavers. Director: Irving Cummings.
This was the first sound film to pretend to tell the story of the notorious western outlaw named Belle Starr, and by all accounts, they messed it up pretty badly. Some of the names are the same, and an incident or two, perhaps, but that’s about all.
As I understand it, Belle Starr was not even all that notorious in her lifetime. It was not until the time of her unsolved murder in 1889 that dime novels picked up her story, leading to a novel about her by Richard K. Fox, Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James, published in 1889. Not too incidentally, Fox was also the publisher of the National Police Gazette, which had also been touting her exploits.
In any case, the movie is entertaining enough, but from the opening scene, you know the intent was primarily to create a legend, be it based only on Technicolor and imagination. The movie begins with an old black man plowing a rocky field aside a burned out mansion telling his grandson the story of the woman who once lived there, and it ends with one black man telling another that Belle Starr will never die, because she is a legend.
Belle Shirley is played by a young Gene Tierney, who is very pretty but not as beautiful on screen as she grew to be. Even so she is better looking than the real Belle Starr by a multiplicative factor of 100 or more. The story takes place in Missouri, but Tierney’s southern accent and mansion makes it seem as though the film was set in Georgia. (Cue for “Tara’s Theme.”)
Miss Belle, as portrayed in the movie at least, is a Southerner through and through, even after the war is over, and when she meets Captain Sam Starr, a rebel turned bandit still fighting the Yankee troops and carpetbaggers busily taking over the state, she gives him shelter, at the cost of her home being burned (Dana Andrews’ character, Union major Thomas Crail, a former sweetheart, comes into play here), and she and her brother end up being declared outlaws.
Captain Starr is played by Randolph Scott, as upright and soft-spoken then as he was in later films. Eventually he and Belle marry, she taking up his cause as thoroughly as he. Until, that is, she realizes that perhaps he is taking his killing and marauding too far.
From this point on, though, you’ll have to watch the film yourself. It’s likable enough. You just have to realize that it’s made up of whole cloth only, planting the seeds for the legend that grew from there.
April 15th, 2019 at 6:01 pm
Judging just by the setting, style and tone, the filmmakers saw Gown With The Wind and liked it for all the wrong storytelling reasons. Randolph Scott, still fine.
April 15th, 2019 at 8:30 pm
The film, much like JESSIE JAMES, has almost no relation to reality including playing Sam Starr as a Confederate officer of the old South rather than the half breed outlaw he was (and only one of many husbands in Belle’s life, and pretty clearly far from the love of her life if she had one).
Like JESSIE JAMES though the film is fair old fashioned hokum so long as you aren’t writing a historical paper based on it.
My cousin was the only girl playing with my friends and I, so she was either Belle Starr, Calamity Jane, or Etta Place (pretty much the only girls who got to wear and gun and use it) and after seeing this most often Belle. I recall playing the Randolph Scott version of Sam and not the real one. Hollywood wins again.
July 3rd, 2019 at 8:04 pm
the movie is on now, GRIT” channeL
December 6th, 2021 at 10:42 pm
I loved this movie, and don’t think the film critics know squat. I love everything about this film. The southern culture, the wardrobe of a southern belle, the grandeur of a time past, a time of brutality, a time of war. I adored Belle played graciously by Gene Tierney with her cultural accent and poise..A time when brother against brother, a time of hatred on both sides, a time of carpetbaggers and Sherman’s march to the sea, the burning of magnificent mansions, the slaughter of live stock and the looting…I could go on, but you’ll hVe to see the movie, if you can find it. Most probably like Song of the South, it’s banned and burned like the books of Surope. Randolph Scott shines in one of his best roles. Belle goes off into the forest, but where she was standing, stands a red fox, laughing, but not like a fox, but that of a southern lady…