movingwater Don't watch this for history, or accuracy, and you might enjoy this movie, featuring very young Audie Murphy, Tony Curtis, and Richard Long. Yes, the show mountains and sandstone canyons outside Lawrence, Kansas. But as a Saturday afternoon cowboy picture, Kansas Raiders is mighty fun. I brought home this and Black Panther to watch the same weekend; at least I watched all of Kansas Raiders!

zardoz-13 "Gung Ho!" director Ray Enright makes the Audie Murphy B-movie western "Kansas Raiders" look better than this Universal-International release has any right. Short, sweet, and simple, this wild and woolly saga about Jesse James' notorious exploits while riding alongside Quantrill's raiders during the Civil War exemplifies American history rewritten Hollywood style to heighten the drama. The film cover the entire time that Jesse and his band spent with Quantrill until the latter died at the hands of Union soldiers. For example, while older brother Frank is said to have participated in the Lawrence, Kansas raid, Jesse had not left his home at that point. "Winchester '73 scenarist Robert L. Richards has Jesse riding into the war earlier than he did. The cast that surrounds Murphy is a good one with Brian Donlevy cast as the infamous Quantrill, Scott Brady as 'Bloody' Bill Anderson, James Best as Cole Younger, Tony Curtis as Kit Dalton, Richard Long as Frank James, and Marguerite Chapman as Quantrill's woman."Kansas Raiders" opens with an exemplary montage that encapsulates the American Civil War. The narrator sounds appropriately glum. "For more than four long, bitter years this nation was torn by civil war, the bloodiest and most destructive in our history for it was a war of neighbor against neighbor, family against family, brother against brother, flag against flag. Nor was the slaughter confined to the armies of the North and South alone. This was a war that bred an outlaw army of guerrillas masquerading under the flags of both sides, pillaging, burning and killing for private gain. The most savage and merciless among the lawless tribes whose organized violence terrorized the county were the men who marched, raided, and killed under the ominous black flag of William Clark Quantrill." No sooner do Jesse (Audie Murphy), his brother Frank (Richard Long) and their close friends Kit Dalton (Tony Curtis), Cole Younger (James Best) and James Younger (Dewey Martin) ride into war-torn Kansas than a group of paranoid Red legs organize a mob to lynch them. Our heroes survive this lynch attempt in Lawrence, Kansas, through the intervention of a fair-minded Union Army Captain (Richard Arlen) who sees that Jesse and his comrades are turned loose. Although they told their captors that they had never seen Quantrill, the boys ride in search of Quantrill and stumble upon him accidentally when they save Kate Clarke (Marguerite Chapman of "Parachute Nurse") from a runaway team of horses. Jesse believes that Quantrill is a real fighting man but Kate does her best to change that faulty impression repeatedly throughout the film's nimble 80 minutes.Nevertheless, Jesse stands up for Quantrill. "I don't like to stand by and see nobody blacken a man's name." Indeed, he feels this about Quantrill and he hasn't even met him. Quantrill is holding court when Jesse and company finally meet him. Quantrill executes several uniformed Union troops as spies. He takes a long, hard look at Jesse and his men and observes, "They look like good boys. Rode all the way from Missouri." Quantrill accepts them and sends one of his closest associates Rudolph Tate (David Wolfe of "Where The Sidewalk Ends") to provoke Jesse into a knife fight. They have to clench a handkerchief in their teeth and start slashing. Jesse triumphs over the bigger man and kills him. Interestingly, Jesse and company bury Tate. "Didn't look like any of his friends were going to bury him," they explain. Later, Jesse refuses to believe Kate when she assures him Quantrill ordered Tate to test him. Ironically, too, the man that Jesse kills—Tate—served as a Northern spy.Robert L. Richards paints a despicable portrait of Quantrill as a murderer. Nevertheless, despite the evil that Quantrill and the James/Younger gang represent, each is depicted in ways that ennoble them. Margaret Chapman serves as the film's conscience. Jesse doesn't so much fall in love with her and come under her influence. Kate has a hard time trying to convince Jesse to leave Quantrill. Indeed, Quantrill does his best to hold onto Jesse and he gets our protagonist drunk while discussing strategy. Later, Jesse doesn't like what he sees Quantrill doing and refuses to ride with him on a raid. "I came here to fight. Came here straight from my home, what's left of it three weeks ago. That was the day Frank and me came home and found the house burning and my ma with her arm shot off, my pa hanging in a tree in the front yard. It was Redlegs, Yankee guerrillas. One of 'em drunk was still there. I come here because I wanted to kill every man I could ever find that would do a thing like that. Then we went out on that raid the other day. I found we were doin' the same thing. We was murderin' people that didn't have no chance. People just like my ma and pa. Maybe that's strategy, colonel, and maybe I don't understand it, but you don't need me for what you're going to do Later, Kate confides in Jesse, "Bloodshed and murder don't mean anything to Quantrill. It's all part of a dream, a dream of playing war. But the people he kills are real people." Quatrill is manipulative and mendacious. Jesse tries to reform him with limited results. Eventually, the war catches up with Quantrill and he disbands his guerrilla army. Jesse and company hang around with him and then Quantrill is blinded and our heroes have to hole up while Yankee swarm the territory. The Union Army catches them in a burned out shack and a blinded Quantrill tricks Jesse and his men into leaving him behind so that he can go out in a blaze of glory. Indeed, "Kansas Raiders" doesn't white-wash Quantrill, but it does white-wash Jesse James and his trigger-happy cohorts. Enright stages the battle scenes with efficiency and "Kansas Raiders" doesn't wear out its welcome.

chuck-reilly "Kansas Raiders" is supposed to be about Jesse James' early career when he purportedly rode with Quantrill's Raiders during the Civil War. Unfortunately, this film takes dramatic license to the extreme and is pure nonsense from start to finish. For openers, Audie Murphy, new to the acting profession at this point in his career, plays Jesse as a wide-eyed innocent humanitarian. Even Jesse James' most ardent supporters would be hard-pressed to place their hero in that category. As far as Murphy's wooden performance in this film, the less said the better. Historical accuracy takes a severe beating here as well. About the only thing factual about this movie is that, for a short while, Jesse and Frank and Cole Younger did fight as Confederate Guerrillas. Most well-researched history books, however, have those fellows riding around with "Bloody Bill" Anderson. In this movie, Bloody Bill (played by a young Scott Brady) is a psychopathic maniac who gets gunned down by Jesse himself. It seems that Jesse just couldn't stand for all that senseless killing and had to put an end to it. Brian Donlevy, who could play a rotten apple as well as anyone, has the thankless role of Quantrill. Besides being far too old for the part, he seems to have about as much enthusiasm for being in this film as he would shoveling snow during a blizzard. Lost in this travesty of a film are some up-and-coming actors who went on to bigger and better things including Tony Curtis, Dewey Martin, James Best, Richard Long and Richard Egan. Marguerite Chapman is also around as the love interest for Mr. Murphy, but that story line falls flat as a pancake.None of the actors here are at fault with this sham of a western. Hollywood Studios of the late 1940's and early 50's cranked out inexpensive and under-written films like this nearly on a weekly basis. Unfortunately for "Kansas Raiders", its cheap budget and bullet-riddled script stick out like a sore thumb to the detriment of all involved. Murphy did improve as an actor over time. For those unfamiliar with him, he was America's most decorated World War II soldier and already had a built-in audience when he decided to take up acting. Most film critics will agree that he was a far better soldier than an actor. I'm quite sure his German adversaries would second that opinion.

alexandre michel liberman (tmwest) Audie is Jesse James. Jesse and Frank, Cole and Jim Younger (where is Bob?) plus Tony Curtis as Kit Dalton are looking for Quantrill to join his guerrilla fighters. On the way they stop in Lawrence, Kansas where they are almost hanged by the red-legs. When they finally join Quantrill, Jesse gets involved in a "handkerchief" fight where each man has to hold on his mouth a part of the handkerchief, while they fight with "Bowie" knives. It is one of the best moments of the film. Does it remind you of something? Walter Hill used the same type of fight in "The Long Riders" this time Cole Younger and Sam Starr where fighting, it was also the best part of that film. As Jesse goes into raids, he starts seeing that they are killing civilians and looting. That is not his idea of war, so he gets in conflict with Quantrill. He also falls in love with Quantrill's wife. In a hypothetical film trilogy about Jesse James, this would be part 1, The Long Riders, part 2 and the Return of Frank James, part 3. Waiting urgently for a DVD because it is an interesting and entertaining film.