SYNOPSICS
The Jayhawkers! (1959) is a English movie. Melvin Frank has directed this movie. Jeff Chandler,Fess Parker,Nicole Maurey,Henry Silva are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1959. The Jayhawkers! (1959) is considered one of the best Romance,Western movie in India and around the world.
Shortly before the start of the American Civil War rebel Kansas leader Luke Darcy dreams of a new independent Republic of Kansas. His vigilante group is called The Jayhawkers and their mission is to end slavery by force. However, Darcy uses The Jayhawkers for his own bid for absolute control of Kansas. Darcy's actions do not sit well with the military governor of Kansas, William Clayton, who wants Darcy captured and brought to justice. For this purpose the governor hires an ex-renegade rebel, Cam Bleeker, to join Darcy's group and capture their leader. Bleeker has a personal reason for wanting to see Darcy hanged. Darcy was responsible for Bleeker wife's death while Bleeker was in prison.
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The Jayhawkers! (1959) Reviews
Western that has Kansas as the prize in period just prior to the Civil War
"The Jayhawkers" was released in 1959 and starred Jeff Chandler as an ambitious person eager to control pre-War Kansas, and Fess Parker has to try and stop him in his scheme. Reason: Parker, as Cam Beeker, had broken out of a federal prison to try and come back to his wife, and his ranch in Kansas. He finds that his wife has died, and the ranch has been sold to a family, headed by French actress Nicole Maurey. He also learns that Luke Darcy, played by Chandler, was the reason behind his wife's death and the ranch being lost. Beeker becomes a member of the gang in order to win his pardon from the territorial governor of Kansas. Upon joining the gang of raiders calling themselves the Jayhawkers, he starts to accept the ambition of Darcy, because the man seems intent on bringing peace to the territory, but under his rule. The viewer of this watchable western will be asking which way Parker's character will finally go; either turn Darcy over to the governor, or become part of the plan to control the territory. A good 7/10
Love it!
A fun to watch western containing Fess Parker's best performance, the show is stolen by Jeff Chandler's performance as the baddie you hate to see taken down. However, as outstanding as Chandler is, the real star of the film is Jerome Moross' pulse-pounding score, which predates his legendary music for THE BIG COUNTRY. It's every bit as good, if not better. Henry Silva is (of course) scuzzy as a hired gun. Catch it. Any western fan won't regret it.
Good movie, great score
It's been a while since I saw this movie, but I remember being impressed with the performances of both Fess Parker and Jeff Chandler. The other person who commented on this movie implied the Chandler character murdered Parker's wife. I don't think that's correct. He just dumped her and she killed herself, or some sort of indirect thing like that. I've since heard part of the movie score on a soundtrack CD showcasing the music of Jerome Moross. Wow! No wonder I liked the movie, the score is really great with a driving main theme. Look for a CD called "The Cardinal - Classic Film Scores of Jerome Moross". There is 16 minutes of music from "The Jayhawkers".
Bloody Kansas
If you're going to watch a Jeff Chandler western, this is the one to see. I'd hestitate to call it a masterpiece, but it's a damn good try. Produced and directed by the team of Norman Panama and Melvin Frank, it is a tale of conflicting loyalties, megalomania, love, hate and a number of other issues I can't remember, in pre-Civil War Kansas on the eve of the Civil War. Star Jeff Chandler, who portrays the megalomaniacal but withal personally decent and charismatic bad guy, is quite good here. He had spent a decade in action pictures and romances, with an occasional comedy thrown in for good measure, and yet had not achieved major stardom. A mid-level star of the kind of medium grade movie that was going out of fashion, he was on the verge of becoming an anachronism; and had he not died a couple of years after this film one wonders what would have happened to him and his career. In The Jayhawkers he shows what he might have become: a fine, commanding, aristocratic character actor. As the second-billed good guy, Fess Parker, fresh from his triumph as Davy Crockett a few years earlier, was attempting a mainstream, post-Disney career. Low-key and phlegmatic, and not without appeal, he lacks the edge of a Mitchum that might have propelled him into the big leagues, and is for the most part an uninteresting hero. Nicole Maurey is the incongruously Gallic love interest, and one can't help be curious as to why she was cast in this film. She was a lovely young woman, but way out of place here. Loyal Griggs color photography is as good as his work in Shane, and far less mannered. The music of Jerome Moross is stirring and in its way as good as anything Dimitri Tiomkin ever did. With its larger than life good-bad guy, and reasonable (for a movie) historical accuracy, this could have been a major film. The problem with it is that though Panama and Frank were quite good at light comedy, they were inexperienced in the western genre. Frank does a good, derivative job of drawing from Ford and Hawkes; and there are some breathtaking vistas. There is even a touch of Nicholas Ray in his creative and interesting use of interiors, especially the main hideout. And Chandler gives an at times daring performance, with occasional lapses into mild effeminacy in his vocalizing and posture, his work is well-rounded and sophisticated, suggesting that his character's feeling for Parker is more than just friendship. Alas, this daring aspect of the story is never gone into with any depth or insight, and the result the movie is a near-miss, but a fascinating one.
The Napoleon of Kansas.
It takes place in Kansas a few years before the Civil War began in 1861, and it outlines the attempt of the nattily dressed Jeff Chandler to change Kansas from a territory to his own empire, town by town. The routine goes like this. Chandler sends his band of masked men into town dressed as "Redlegs" to hurrah the place and break windows and commit pillage and outrage the local gals. Then he and his men later ride into town as themselves, the "Jayhawkers", and promise to protect the good folk, who will have nothing more to fear from the Redlegs. When the Mafia do this, it's called extortion. Who were the Jayhawkers, you ask, and well you might. They were supposedly free-staters as opposed to the pro-slavery faction. The Redlegs were a violent splinter group of the Jayhawkers. But these are just names. In fact, Kansas was a mess. The war between slavery and freedom deteriorated into a series of bloody raids back and forth -- one of them led by John Brown. So it's not necessary to try to figure out who Chandler represented historically. He's a fiction. Besides, who wants to remember all those slang names -- Jayhawkers, Redlegs, Border Ruffians (eg., Jesse James), Carpetbaggers, and Copperheads? You can forget all of that. This is the story of a man whose reach exceeded his grasp. According to this tale, though, Chandler might have made it if it hadn't been for Fess Parker as the Army's undercover agent who finally undoes Chandler. Parker is the main character. It's too bad because his is a complex role. He has to change from hating Chandler, to admiring and protecting him, to betraying him. And he simply mopes his way through the part, not convincing for a second. Chandler's role is, if anything, even more complex, a little like Wolf Larson in "The Sea Wolf" but without the sadism. He's delicately brutal -- about others, about himself, and about life in general -- and not devoid of brotherly feelings towards the secret traitor in their midst. (If that's what those sentiments represent; and let's have no remarks about homoeroticism.) Chandler is very suave. He teaches Parker to read the classics. "Ya done taught me about fellers like that Frenchman Alexander." Chandler smiles condescendingly as if speaking to a kindergartener, "He was a Greek." (Well, almost; he was Macedonian.) Chandler drinks only wine, and only GOOD wine. You get the picture. When Jeff Chandler finally establishes his empire, his idea of governance is simple. There will be peace. I decide what "peace" means. Anybody who disobeys in the slightest will be summarily shot. He will unquestionably govern his empire from Chandler City, in Chandler County, in the Republic of Chandlerstan. Jeff Chandler handles this complicated and ambiguous role as best he can. It's easy to imagine lesser actors in the role. Fess Parker, for one. But Chandler always seems to carry a tentative, wounded quality around with him. His smiles don't seem real. And his proclamations sound earnest, passionate, but neither confident nor boastful. There's little of Little Caesar in his Little Napoleon. The photography and locations will suffice and the musical score has been lauded. Elmer Bernstein probably heard it before scoring "The Magnificent Seven."