by upbeat music on the score. Jesse yells out a cheery, “Hey Bob!” as Ford enters the bathhouse laden with pails of hot water. Although the setup is lighthearted and playfully homoerotic, after Bob pours the water in to freshen Jesse’s bath, the score shifts to a threatening crescendo, punctuating a cut to a medium-close-up of Jesse’s back from Bob’s optical point of view. We remember Bob’s promise and recognize that he spies an opportunity, and as the significance of the moment sinks in—surely Jesse will never be this naively exposed and vulnerable again—Fuller ups the ante, cutting out to a long shot of Bob picking up a Colt 45—a gift from Jesse, and a convenient murder weapon. As the scene cuts between Bob’s point of view of Jesse’s back and a low angle of him fondling the gun and looking nervously at Jesse, the audience is placed in Bob’s subjectivity, recognizing his anxious indecision and how it is heightened by his mentor’s generosity and good spirits. At the same time, however, the clichéd sexual symbolism can’t help but shine through: a naked man has just given another man a gun—in a bathhouse! The dramatic suspense and campy comedy are held in tension as Fuller exerts even more narrative pressure, overlaying a shot of Jesse’s back with his exhortation to Ford: “Well go ahead, Bob. What are you waiting for? There’s my back … scrub it.” And then, given motive, opportunity, and means to shoot, Bob chooses to … scrub.
This scene provides an important moment of narrative suspense—will Bob kill Jesse or not?—while also underlining Jesse’s unquestioning trust in Bob and Bob’s hesitation in murdering Jesse. More significant, however, is how Fuller achieves these narrative goals, placing the viewer in Bob’s subjectivity while simultaneously highlighting tonal counterpoints. Although the bathhouse scene stands alone in I Shot Jesse James as an example of unexpected tonal play, this narrative strategy becomes much more widely used in Fuller’s later work.
As with the narrative, the visual style in I Shot Jesse James reflects Fuller’s search for techniques that will effectively heighten the viewer’s emotional involvement while maintaining production efficiency. The quality of the overall staging is uneven, however, and lays bare both Fuller’s inexperience and production constraints. Dialogue-laden scenes are typically constructed from a master shot and inserts, and the use of optical close-ups attests to the overall lack of coverage. While Fuller often staged scenes this way in his later films, I Shot Jesse James features none of the intricate blocking and camera movement that bring dynamism to his long takes in Pickup on South Street, Forty Guns, or The Crimson Kimono. The lack of camera movement and close angles are also felt in the film’s primary fistfight, captured by a high-angle, extreme long shot that diffuses the kineticism of the characters’ actions. More successful is the short fight between the marshal and Frank James, staged as an exchange of point-of-view shots: first the marshal punches into the camera in a medium close-up, and then Frank James recoils in an opposing medium close-up. Here the camera optically situates the viewer in the middle of the action, and the effect of the marshal’s punch is more fully felt.
The visual preferences that define Fuller’s later work are most apparent in the film’s opening and closing scenes. The opening is a largely wordless montage organized around character glances that depict an unfolding bank heist by Jesse James and his gang. The final image of the credits sequence, a poster announcing “$10,000 Reward For Jesse James Dead or Alive,” swish pans to the beginning of the scene, a close-up of an unidentified man we conclude to be James. The scene then cuts to an opposing close-up of another unidentified man, then back to James, whereupon the camera tracks out to a medium shot of the two men, revealing James to be holding a gun on the other man. By opening on the shot–reverse shot close-ups, Fuller immediately begins raising questions in the viewer’s mind: who are these men, and what is the conflict between them? The fourth shot in the scene answers these questions by presenting a long shot of the entire space: a bank robbery is in progress, and James is holding a gun on the head bank teller. Subsequent shots provide medium angles of the men, analytically dividing the space and creating eyeline matches between the tellers and the robbers, all motionless except for Bob Ford, stuffing money from the safe into a bag. The disorienting opening shots and lack of immediate exposition in I Shot Jesse James preview the similarly opaque beginnings of The Steel Helmet, Pickup on South Street, and The Naked Kiss, displaying an early iteration of Fuller’s penchant for keeping viewers guessing even as they expect to be clearly introduced to a new narrative.
As with the first part of I Shot Jesse James’s opening scene, the second segment is constructed like a tense intake of breath, everything held in suspension, until the sounding of the alarm prompts a sudden, fast release. Fuller develops the suspense of the robbery in a series of intercut close-ups of (A) James, (B) the head teller, and (C) the teller’s foot inching toward an alarm bell. The slight movement of the teller’s foot draws the viewer’s eye in contrast with the static, impassive close-ups, while the evenly paced editing draws out the teller’s movement and heightens our anticipation of the alarm, still unbeknownst to the James gang: ABCBC/B/ABCBC (alarm sounds). The subtle contrast between stasis and motion introduced in the first two segments of the scene becomes overt in the third, as the sound of the alarm bell spurs every man into action. Fuller returns to the medium shots of the men, their movements forming rhythmic patterns and developing graphic contrasts across the scene, providing a sudden burst of kineticism: Jesse looks offscreen right, then Bob looks offscreen right, then the bank tellers point their guns to the right; a gang member turns to the left and shoots, then another gang member shoots to the left. The return to the establishing shot completes the editing pattern that doubles the first segment of the scene and finally clarifies the escape of the James Gang.
James Ireland as Bob Ford (left) in a publicity still from the opening scene of I Shot Jesse James. Much of the scene is organized through eyeline matches—juxtaposing shots of characters’ glances with shots of what the characters are looking at. Photofest
The piecemeal construction of space, development of eyeline matches, contrast between stasis and motion, and rhythmic and graphic editing patterns utilized in this scene are early examples of some of Fuller’s favorite stylistic techniques, designed to emphasize conflict and motion within the frame. These same techniques are also brought to bear on the film’s closing scene, the final confrontation between Bob Ford and the marshal. Shot in depth and largely in darkness, the scene begins with an extended sequence that intercuts (A) a deep-space shot of the marshal, static in the foreground, first facing Bob, then turned away, and (B) a medium shot of Bob, advancing on the marshal with a drawn gun from the background, producing an editing pattern of ABABABABABA. In a reversal of the prototypical western showdown, the tension in the scene hinges on the marshal’s refusal to fight; by turning away from Bob, he dares him to again shoot a man in the back. Similar to the strategy he used in the second segment of the opening scene, Fuller extends the situation through repeated cuts back and forth between the depth shot of the marshal on the street and Bob, contrasting the marshal’s stasis in the frame with Bob’s advance into the foreground, causing the latter to loom ever larger in the frame. Here, however, the depth staging, chiaroscuro lighting, and violent yelling of Bob Ford create a darker, more chaotic feel. The staging of this sequence presages the showdowns at the end of Forty Guns and Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street, each utilizing rhythmic and graphic editing patterns and contrast between stasis and movement to heighten the scene’s dynamism and suspense.
The response to I Shot Jesse James exceeded Fuller’s and Lippert’s expectations, launching the film into top first-run houses, where it played steadily as the headliner from February through May of 1949 before moving to neighborhood theaters.16 Variety accurately noted, “Physical values are about usual level of Screen Guild releases, giving it the dressing for top playing time in houses buying sturdy action product.”17 In April the film debuted at the Palace in New York City, a 1,700-seat, first-run Broadway theater, a first for a Lippert picture. By August, Lippert estimated grosses for the film at an exceptionally high $800,000, although actual returns were probably lower. Regardless, I Shot
