Bad Men of Missouri (Warner Bros.) (1941)

— REE 4 -I¥*Q ars Sa NE of Missouri’s lesserO known claims to fame at last receives widespread circulation in the new picture, “Bad Men of Missouri,” starring Wayne Morris, Dennis Morgan, Arthur Kennedy and Jane Wyman. Before this, the state’s fame, as far as the outside world is concerned, was limited to the facts that it is inhabited by a slightly incredulous folk who believe nothing unless they are “shown” and the place where the world’s best mules are bred. But when the projection machines unreel the story of Cass County’s Younger brothers in the movie houses of the nation, the word goes out that it was Missouri which gave birth to America’s counterpart of England’s famed Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to give to the poor. The only difference is that Missouri wasn’t content with one Robin Hood but gave the country his two brothers as well. The story of Cole Younger and his two brothers lay pretty dormant in the years since the Eighties of the last century, when the Youngers defied law and authority to aid the harried and oppressed farmers of Missouri who were being bled white by unscrupulous bankers and carpetbagging politicians. Jesse James and his brother Frank, as a matter of fact, got their start with the Younger brothers and in many ways their fame has surpassed that of their mentors’. History has been less than just, because whatever their crimes and de Ma predations, the Younger brothers never stole for reasons of personal gain. The James boys branched out. a bit, but the Younger lads all went to prison because, for all the millions they took from the Mid-West’s banks, they never kept a penny for themselves. These and many other facts have been unearthed by an alert Research Department at Warner Bros. You have to go back to “Gone With the Wind” to find such meticulous attention to. historical detail as has been lavished on “Bad Men of Missouri” by the Burbank studio. Mrs. Pearl May Kerns, last surviving relative of Cole Younger, was the only person to respond to a nation-wide call for descendants to act as technical advisers. By the time the picture was finished shooting, Mrs. Kerns declared that she had learned more about her notorious ancestors than she had known herself. She learned for the first time, for example, that Missouri’s prisons fifty years ago were model establishments as far as the prisoners were concerned and it was a pretty ungrateful wretch who tried to bust the clink. True, there were no baseball teams or glee clubs, but the jailers in those days were the prisoners’ friends, running all errands for incarcerated pals— from fetching tobacco to rushing the growler. The beds in Missouri’s jails at the time were also provided with feather ticking for the felons’ sleeping pleasure, which is a lot more than the lads get today. When the Warners started casting for “Bad Men of Missouri” they had to find stars for the Younger brothers’ parts who were hard-ridin’ and straight-shootin’. They had no de Missouri Great! Younger Brothers, Bandit-Heroes of Post Civil War West Live Again in Roaring Action Picture Coming to Strand trouble filling the first half of the bill but it took a little schooling to round out the stars’ education. Dennis Morgan and Wayne Morris are both known around Holywood as two of the more able and daring poloists and newcomer Arthur Kennedy can jump a saddle mount with the best of them. So there was no trouble as far as the horsemanship went. But the oldfashioned firearms were another matter. When the boys were first presented with the midget cannon which another generation knew as the Colt six-shooter or the 45, Morris, Morgan and Kennedy handled the iron with the ease of a five-year-old trying to lift the parlor piano. Warners (Above) They out-rode the Daltons ... they out-shot the James boys! Dennis Morgan, Arthur Kennedy and Wayne Morris as the Younger brothers, outlaw-heroes of Missouri, in the bullet-splashed had to hire an expert to show the boys what to do with the ancient firearms. By the time the picture was over, however, the stars were able to twirl, toss and draw their gats like experts. But for all their gun-toting proclivities, it was the contention of Cole Younger that he and his brothers never caused the violent death of anyone, Crack shots though the three Younger brothers were, their six-shooters were used only in self-defense, and they are said never to have wilfully caused the death of anyone. (Left) Morgan and Faye Emerson in one of the tenderer moments of the film, “Bad Men of Missouri’. friend or foe. The only possible plot on the family escutcheon was the time they captured two gentlemen who tried to lure them into a trap in which two hired killers waited to get the Youngers. The brothers dressed the gentlemen in their clothes and permitted the killers to assassinate their own employers. The law finally caught up with the Younger brothers when they were double-crossed in holding up a Northfield, Minnesota, bank and were badly shot up. Bob Younger was so seriously wounded that the brothers had to make a choice between remaining by him or escaping with the James boys. They chose to remain by Bob and finally, starved and _ surrounded, they surrendered to the Minnesota authorities. “Bad Men of Missouri’ follows the story of the Youngers with scrupulous care but it ends with their capture. Bob Younger never recovered from his wounds and the long days of picture, “Bad Men of Missouri”. exposure when the _ brothers were hiding out. He lived on in prison, a semi-invalid, for sixteen years before he died. Jim Younger was. paroled after twenty years and he found Mary Hathaway, played by Jane Wyman in the film, still waiting for him. Declared legally dead, however, because of his life-term, he was not permitted to marry her. This, after two decades of waiting, drove him mad and he took his own life. Only Cole Younger, eldest of the brothers, was able to lead a normal life after he had served twenty-five years in prison. Paroled in 1902 and granted a full pardon a year later, Cole Younger returned to Lee’s Summit, Missouri, a quiet, studious, old man who spent his days reading the Bible and writing little pieces which urged the youth of his day to cleave to the straight and narrow and abjure the careers of Jesse James and _ Cole Younger. When he died in 1916, Jackson County gave him the biggest funeral in its history, a congressman read the eulogy and the Governor of Missouri commended his life out of jail as useful and a model to young people. His death twenty-five years ago marked the end of the American Robin Hood. Art and Type on One Mat. Order "BM MAT 601-B"—90c—from Campaign Plan Editor, 321 W. 44th St.,N. Y.C.