THE RETURN OF FRANK JAMES (1940) *** Some of this stuff no doubt happened, some didn't, and some happened like this. Doesn't matter. As the great Ken Kesey said, "Some things are true even if they didn't happen." This is a historical film. You would expect Henry Fonda to dwarf everything around him as Frank, but he doesn't. He's very good, but there are only a few moments that suggest that he has the potential to become... Henry Fonda. Gene Tierney is far more interesting-she's also very good, no better-but she has an incredibly written character. Ah, the heady early days of feminism, when the targets were so big and deserving, and so vulnerable and sure of themselves that they could frequently be defeated by the mere shock that a woman had the courage to stand up to them. You wouldn't expect any shoot-'em-up Western-much less a Fritz Lang-to pick up steam and accelerate into hyperspace once it gets into court, but that's exactly what happens. Henry Hull does it. Every time he opens his mouth he makes you laugh, every time he's making fun of someone, and every time he's making fun of someone and something that deserves it. American historical memory is a funny thing: there isn't much of it, we can't recall (and so repeat) the errors that took us into Vietnam, virtually no one has any idea what the Reagan administration was really about...I remember a poll in the early '90s that 90% of Americans knew who Magic Johnson was, but less than a third of us had any idea who Lyndon B. Johnson (whose presidency has ended barely more than 20 years earlier) had been. The exception is the large element of the South who remember the Confederacy fondly and whose condemnation of all things Yankees remains, if in a largely diluted form. If you wonder why that is, this court scene (brilliantly presided over by Judge George Barbier) should give you some idea. Now, if they can just make that connection between Yankee carpetbaggers and international corporations...
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