Introduction

This page is a special tie in to The Official American Outlaws website, and all of the pictures used on this page I have been given permission to put up from Morgan Creek Productions in Los Angeles, for which I would like to say a very special thank you. The text is from various other websites, which members of the group have very kindly sent to me, and covers the making of American Outlaws, which includes a script review of that project.

Timothy Dalton as Allan Pinkerton.

American Outlaws - Synopsis

When a midwest town learns that a corrupt railroad baron has captured the deeds to their homesteads without their knowledge, a group of young ranchers join forces to take back what is rightfully theirs.

In the course of their vendetta, they will become the object of the biggest manhunt in the history of the Old West and, as their fame grows, so will the legend of their leader, a young outlaw by the name of Jesse James.

Synopsis of Jesse James © Copyright Morgan Creek Productions 2000 All Rights Reserved.

The Wild West comes back to life; This time, the heroes wear black hats as 'American Outlaws' comes to Texas, by Louis B. Parks

Timothy in a scene from American Outlaws.

DRIFTWOOD - Dust hangs in the air thick as burlap, and the pounding of hooves assaults the ears. Stampede. As a thundering herd of 50 horses gallops through the square, actors, extras and stunt people dive for cover. Not out of surprise: They've already shot this scene several times, and they expect to repeat it again. The stampede is part of the script, but there's nothing phony about the scramble to get away from 200 flashing hooves that shake the whole town. For a moment, you can't see anything for the vast cloud of dirt stirred up. As it begins to settle, cowboys, lawmen and merchants can be spotted popping back out of buildings and up from behind water troughs. Across the town square, a gallows appears through the haze. Standing on it, a young outlaw named Cole Younger waits to be hanged. Or perhaps rescued.

Hollywood is riding the range in the ranch lands 30 miles southwest of Austin. It's a rare sight these days. Between Westerns being out of vogue and the cheap Canadian dollar luring most film productions north of the border, there have been lonesome saddles in the old corrals of Texas. Not this summer around Driftwood, though. Morgan Creek Productions - which releases movies through Warner Bros. - is filming American Outlaws on the wooded and gently rolling Hill Country of the Double C Ranch. American Outlaws is an action-adventure comedy, based loosely on the legend of outlaw brothers Jesse and Frank James and Cole, Bob and Jim Younger. A cast of handsome young actors plays the outlaws, with Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights) as detective Allan Pinkerton hot on their trail. Kathy Bates, Harris Yulin, Ronny Cox and Terry O'Quinn are also in the cast. "It's a stylized script," Timothy says during a break between scenes. "We're not really talking God's honest truth. We are talking sort of romanticized adventure, which makes it exciting and allows you to go places. "We're certainly not limited by the "truth," he says, laughing hard. "This is the Robin Hood Jesse James." Cast and crew have been working on the Double C since mid-July, sweating in their heavy chaps and wool costumes through the hottest summer in years. They expected to wrap the Texas part of the shoot this weekend.

Timothy is in town as Allan Pinkerton.

On this particular day, the high has not quite reached 100, and the sun is beating down mercilessly on the 40-odd buildings and several streets of American Outlaws Western town. It's baking dust, horses and people. "It's like a sauna bath," Timothy says. "It's brutal. The heat itself, if I were wearing a cotton shirt and a pair of shorts, it would be OK, but you can see I'm wearing a three-piece woolen suit and a heavy felt hat." Timothy, who previously filmed Centennial in Del Rio, at least knows about Texas weather. For Colin Farrell, the handsome 24-year-old Irish actor who landed the part of Jesse James (thanks to his role as a Texan in Joel Schumacher's upcoming Tigerland), nothing back home prepared him for summer in the Lone Star State. "Hot, too hot," Farrell says in a porridge-thick Irish accent, different from the way he sounds in the movie. "God, I'm drinking more water than beer for the first time in me life."

When the cameras are not actually rolling on a scene - about 95 percent of the time - those who aren't essential stay in the shade on the dusty Old West boardwalks, close by the caches of cold water hidden just out of camera range. Crew members are adjusting the camera setup for the next take, in which the outlaws stampede the horses through town to disrupt the hanging. The horses will run through, the townspeople will dive for cover, and Timothy will step forward between two cameras. It's the fifth take. Among those watching is Gabriel Macht, who played William Holden in "The Audrey Hepburn Story" and Dr. Gabriel on NBC's "The Others" series.

In American Outlaws, Macht is sharp-shooting Frank James. Frank is in this scene, on top of a three-story building so he can shoot as part of the rescue attempt. On screen, that will happen at the same time as what's now being filmed. But Macht's part won't be shot until several hours from now. Like most sets, American Outlaws is hours of preparation broken by flurries of activity. The greater part of this day will be taken up by repeatedly shooting tiny segments only a few seconds long. Weeks or months from now, the pieces will be edited together to make one short, action-packed scene. "Today, Cole Younger is about to be hanged," Macht says. "Jesse and his gang are here to rescue him. We have horses running through town with Jesse on the side saddleback. "I'm on the top of the general mercantile, disguising myself as a Pinkerton (agent)." But then Macht shuts up with a grin. "I don't want to tell what happens," he says. Macht is sitting on a stool, leaning back against a wooden store front. His holster and pistols are folded up and lying on the boardwalk at his feet. He's enthusiastic about the film. "It's based on some real facts, but it is sort of the legend of Jesse James, the myth, not a biopic," he says. "It's got a little romance, a lot of incredible action." On the set, it feels like we're really in the Old West.

Another scene from American Outlaws.

The town is wide, long and detailed, with several side streets leading off in every direction. In front of us is a reviewing stand for the hanging, beyond that, the gallows, and beyond that, a large courthouse and jail. Step outside the perimeter of the huge set, and you see cars, trucks, porta-potties, food wagons and the unfinished back side of buildings. Step back into the town, and you return to the 19th century, with buckboard wagons, hitching rails, dirt streets and buildings with an authentic Wild West look. Well, maybe not "that" authentic. "A lot of times, you really want to be precisely accurate," says Cary White, the film's production designer. "Then you do a lot of research. "But (director) Les Mayfield ("Blue Streak") is not as interested in historical accuracy as in doing an archetypal Western. With that in mind, looking at old movies is more important than studying old photographs." To study old Westerns, Austinite White need look no further than his own work. He was nominated for Emmys for his designs on "Lonesome Dove" and "Buffalo Girls." His many Westerns include "Red-Headed Stranger" with Willie Nelson and "The Good Old Boys" with Tommy Lee Jones. "The West in everyone's mind, through the movies, is a different animal than what you see if you research," White says. "There's mythology in all this." Tom Copeland, director of the Texas Film Commission, says White is one of the reasons Morgan Creek decided to come to Texas. "He has a great track record on Western films," Copeland says. "The Austin area is very well known because of Cary White and John Frick (also on American Outlaws) and other production designers and art directors. They have a very strong art department and production department. When you're thinking of a Western, you are going to have to build a lot of stuff. You want to talk to some of these guys who have been there before." American Outlaws was originally to shoot in spring, was delayed, then came to Texas in summer on short notice. So time was important. "(They) came into town middle May," White says. "This whole town was built in about six weeks. It's been a heroic effort by all these guys building the set in summer heat." The building continues through production. As soon as the bank or saloon is used for one scene, carpenters start remodeling for another scene in a different town. The gang robs three banks in American Outlaws. You shouldn't be able to tell in the finished picture, but they were all shot in the same place. So convincing is the town that the film commission is trying to arrange for it to be preserved after filming, both for movies and as a possible tourist attraction. White is one of many Texans put to work by American Outlaws. "It's 76 percent Texan," Copeland says of the crew. The film commission, which works year-round to lure productions to the state, also helps match films with skilled Texas crew. A film such as American Outlaws, which is budgeted at more than $ 20 million (official figures have not been released), spends a lot in an area. Another Texan on the set is production sound mixer Pud Cusack, a Houstonian who was Oscar-nominated for 1998's "The Mask of Zorro." Just back from New Zealand, where she spent a cold eight months on a high-altitude glacier doing sound for "Vertical Limit," Cusack is glad to be working near home, despite the heat. Setting up sound on a cowboy town may not provide quite the excitement of a glacier, but Cusack says Westerns create plenty of problems to keep a sound mixer and her staff busy. "This is not only a Western action-adventure, but it's almost all dialogue," she says. "They want to have action but with good characters, with meaning and story in between. That's always a challenge. We want to get the dialogue as clean as we can, but the opening sequence is all guns and explosions and Gatlings going off." The horses are a big part of the movie, of course, and all the actors playing the outlaw brothers spent several weeks in California at cowboy camp, learning how to go Texan. "That's what nailed it for us all," says Farrell, who had done only a little English-style riding in Ireland. He got plenty of Western style at the camp, near Los Angeles. "Four weeks of going out two or three times a week at a ranch, with all the horse wranglers - riding and hitting marks and loping and trying to turn them." By now, everyone has learned one thing about the horses: Stay out of the way when they stampede through the set. Director Les Mayfield shouts action, and here they come again, thundering past. Fifteen seconds later, they've rushed through town, and another dust cloud blankets the set. "That was great," the director shouts. "Let's do it again."

I would like to very much thank Margo for the above sending the above article to me.

The Stax Report: Script Review of Timothy's project of American Outlaws aka Jesse James. Pictured left is Timothy as Allan Pinkerton.

Stax here with my reaction to the screenplay for the umpteenth film biography of legendary outlaw Jesse James! This 112-page draft dated September 15th, 1999 is by John Rogers (Mage). The film is being directed by Les Mayfield (Blue Streak) and produced by the Morgan Creek company. It stars Irish newcomer Colin Farrell as Jesse James, Gabriel Macht as his older brother Frank, Oscar winner Kathy Bates as their mother, former 007 Timothy Dalton as Allan Pinkerton, Scott (Gone in 60 Seconds) Caan as Cole Younger, and Ali Larter (Final Destination) as Jesse's love Zerelda. The cast also includes Will McCormack, Gregory Smith, Nathaniel Arcand, and veteran character actors Ronny (Robocop) Cox and Harris (Clear and Present Danger) Yulin. Jesse James began shooting around Austin, Texas on July 17th and it will be distributed in the late spring/early summer of 2001 by Warner Brothers.

Jesse James follows the outlaw's life from the closing days of the Civil War, when he rode with Quantrill's Rangers alongside his brother Frank and their cousins Cole and Bob Younger, until the peak of his celebrity as a Robin Hood-style thief. Returning home to their mother's farm after the South's surrender, wildcard Jesse and the more studious Frank James find that ex-Confederate families are being forced off their farms by the Yankee juggernaut that is the Rock Island and Pacific Railroad.

After the railroad causes a personal tragedy for them, Jesse and Frank reunite with their cousins, the Youngers, to begin a new war versus the Yankees, this time against their vast corporate interests. To protect his railroad and their payrolls, Rock Island baron Thaddeus Rains hires legendary detective Allan Pinkerton and his agency to stop Jesse James at all costs. Lots of gunfights, robberies, and mischief ensue. (For anybody wondering just how far into Jesse's life this film goes, if "Bob Ford" means anything to you then you'll be surprised to find he's not in this version.)

Besides Abraham Lincoln or Billy the Kid, there have been few other Americans who've had as many film and TV biographies devoted to them as Jesse James. (George Custer, Wyatt Earp, Davy Crockett, and Al Capone also rank pretty high on that list.) It's truly amazing at how many times the same story's been retold. The last major Jesse James biopic that I'm aware of is 1994's Frank and Jesse, with Rob Lowe as Jesse and Bill Paxton as Frank. The Jesse James legend has seldom been accurately presented on film. Proving John Ford's famous maxim about Westerns true, films often decide to simply "print the legend." This new incarnation will be no exception.

Like Billy the Kid, Jesse James can be re-imagined by subsequent generations of filmmakers, with his life and crimes used metaphorically to mean different things for different eras. Mostly, though, the exploits of the James-Younger gang have made for fun Western entertainment, with Jesse portrayed as an American Robin Hood who stole from rich railroads and banks and gave back to the poor farming families of the Midwest. While there is something to that legend, the truth about Jesse James is far more dark and complex.

Honesty, one of the best rebuttals I've ever seen of the Jesse James legend was on (and, yes, I can't believe I'm using them, either) The Brady Bunch! Remember the episode where Bobby meets the old man whose father had been gunned down by Jesse James and this snaps Bobby out of his deluded hero fixation after he has a dream where Jesse guns down the entire Brady family? That episode was actually a pretty effective way of making the point to kids that Hollywood's romanticism of criminals can pose certain risks. Forget the legend, folks; Jesse James was no Robin Hood and his gang killed plenty of innocent people. Would any of you like to see the person who murdered your loved one turned into a hero on screen?

Now, I do love Westerns and have had a lifelong passion for the actual history of the Old West. I adore many classic films like My Darling Clementine and The Gunfight at O.K. Corral that certainly mangled history. At the very least, hopefully these films will pique the viewer's interest in learning more about the subject by reading some books (yes, more than one!). We often let these blatant historical inaccuracies in Westerns slide because these films are generally meant as mere escapism. On that level, many Westerns work wonderfully. Once you know a little history, however, you can't help but be jaded when you watch these films again and understand just how much liberty they've taken with the facts.

This puts the new Jesse James in crowded company then. It's about as historically inaccurate as Henry King's 1939 classic Jesse James that starred Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda. That film was a huge hit and it even spawned a completely fictional but enjoyable sequel directed by Fritz Lang (The Return of Frank James). This new version follows much the same plot as the 1939 film. Like Power and Fonda, these James boys are simply misunderstood, charming rebels retaliating against evil railroads that are driving their neighbors off their land.

Judged purely as light entertainment, as it is clearly intended to be, this Jesse James was briskly paced, lighthearted fun chock full of humor and action. As history, however, it was a sham. As I was nearing the end of the script, I was making a mental laundry list of its many inaccuracies. And I'm not talking nit-picks, either. I mean having characters die that did not die at that time in real life, or having other characters being responsible for certain events, the chronology being off, etc. But then Mr. Rogers ends the script with a coda that essentially casts doubts on the veracity of all the preceding events, acknowledging that what you'd just been told was a very tall tale.

This coda mostly succeeds in getting the storyteller off the hook but it also felt self-conscious, too aware that the legend had indeed been printed. As much as an insurance policy as the coda was likely intended to be, it could still be easily excised once the film's done. I suppose it depends on what note test audiences would rather see the film close on: a happy-go-lucky ending, or a more bittersweet scene that casts doubt on all that's happened before. Will audiences opt for history or Hollywood?

Well, obviously, the issue of accuracy has never kept audiences away from seeing fact-based films. If all you want is a simple Western to enjoy, then you'll likely be pleased by Jesse James. I'm certain there'll be those who suspect this is just Young Guns 3 by any other name and might avoid it. That's not an entirely unfounded impression. This story was a lightweight action flick for the MTV crowd very much in the vein of those Brat Pack shoot 'em-ups.

This film even has a cool Native American gang member a la Lou Diamond Phillips. This P.C. stuff is why Hollywood vexes the history buff in me. It's asking me to forget too much about that time, sugarcoating over harsh realities by employing "inclusion" and self-deprecating humor. The James Gang never rode with Indians, they were all Confederates with very decided views on race relations, and the inclusion of "Comanche Tom" (Arcand), as entertaining as he was, is far too kind a tribute to pay to these men. Making thieves and killers into charming rogues is enough of a hurdle to clear but making them liberal as well is impossible to stomach.

In all fairness to this film, I had the same problem with Unforgiven. Guys like Will Munny would not have had friends that looked like Morgan Freeman. Real-life desperadoes such as John Wesley Harding, Doc Holliday, and Billy the Kid were undeniably racist and often did not even include people of color among their tally of victims.

Now, I am able to compartmentalize my grievances with a historical film (and save them to rant about later on). While reading Jesse James, my head told me what was all wrong but my spirit said to just enjoy the ride. Viewed strictly as the fluff entertainment it's clearly meant to be, Jesse James was a lot of fun at times. It had lively characters, snappy dialogue, taut pacing, and plenty of action. Industry buzz has it that the studio brass found this draft so appealing that they green-lit the project without ordering any revisions. (This script helped land John Rogers the chance to adapt the comic book Mage.)

This "industry buzz" about Rogers' draft is probably as big a tall tale as any ever told about Jesse James; I can't imagine that this script was not even "tweaked" before filming. Regardless, this draft was definitely an audience-friendly romp so I can see why the suits went gaga over it. I'll go see Jesse James when it opens but, as a fan of Westerns, I probably would have anyway even if I didn't enjoy the script.

Older viewers, however, might find Jesse James grating since it's so clearly skewed towards the youth demographic (again, like Young Guns). And if you're going into this expecting another Shanghai Noon, as I'd initially expected, you'll probably be let down. Jesse James doesn't have much over-the-top humor, and it contains a few genuinely dramatic and tense moments.

This version shows that the Civil War made the James boys – and their cousins, the Youngers – into the desperadoes they became. As Confederate guerrillas, the boys became expert killers able to live off the land for long periods of time and practiced in attacking their enemies' supply lines. The James-Younger gang would later use the skills they gained from the war against the (Yankee-owned) railroads and banks. This script suggests that the boys, as much as they loathed the war, had fun during it, too. This continuing desire for "fun" made the James' and the Youngers' post-war "career choice" a natural progression.

As with almost any film about a gang, only the leaders are given much character development. Rogers does do a commendable job in giving each member at least a few good zingers or sentimental moments to humanize them. Still, Jesse, Frank, and Cole Younger are clearly placed in the spotlight. This rivalry for fame causes some dissension in the ranks, not unlike in a "band movie" where the lead singer outshines his musicians.

Jesse's relationship with future wife "Zee" is only a subplot until Act Three. They mostly flirt with each other like school kids until Jesse takes a hiatus from his outlaw life. Zee is the only substantial female role in this script; Ma James is really only a glorified cameo for Kathy Bates. The script also makes no mention of Ma James' other husband, or of her son from that marriage who the Pinkertons killed.

Timothy once more.

Although employed by the cartoonish overlord of Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, Allan Pinkerton is not depicted here as a true villain. I expected him to be the Sir Guy of Gisbourne to Thaddeus Rains' Sheriff of Nottingham but Pinkerton's much closer to Sam Gerard in The Fugitive. This Allan Pinkerton is a tough professional who possesses his own code of honor. He's trying mighty hard not to like his prey. Pinkerton and Jesse have one very tense, entertaining scene near the end that left me wanting more of this type of sparring throughout. Unfortunately, that never quite happened.

While my inner history buff was annoyed by the script's inaccuracies, the Western lover grudgingly admits to enjoying Jesse James for what it was: a silly dime novel for the new millennium. It certainly won't replace The Long Riders as my favorite James Gang flick. Still, if Les Mayfield can make this movie as much of an audience favorite as Blue Streak then I reckon Jesse James will ride off with yet another big bundle of loot. Or, maybe this bandit will "go down in a blaze of glory" like those other Young Guns who came before him. – STAX

I would like to say a special thank you to Sylvia for sending the American Outlaws aka Jesse James script review to me.