The Jayhawkers! (1959) User Reviews (18)

Good movie, great score

[chall-5 · 7/10 · 15 March 2005]

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".

Decent Western in which Chandler and Parker battle for power in pre-Civil War Kansas

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 16 November 2021]

Shortly before the start of the American Civil War rebel Kansas leader Luke Darcy (Jeff Chandler) plans a new independent Republic of Kansas and craving for loot . His vigilante group is called The Jayhawkers and their depredations contributed to the descent of the Missouri-Kansas border region into some of the most vicious guerrilla fighting of the Civil War. Their mission is to end slavery by force but degenerating so completely into a squalid, murderous, slugging match . However, rebel leader 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 (Herbert Rudley) , as the government command instituted martial law due to "the crime of armed depredations or jay-hawking having reached a height dangerous to the peace and posterity to the whole State (Kansas) and seriously compromising the Union cause in the border counties of Missouri. As William Clayton supposedly wants Darcy captured and brought to justice. For this aim the governor hires an ex-renegade rebel , Cam Bleeker (Fess Parker) , to join Darcy's group and capture their leader . Bleeker has a personal reason for wanting to see Darcy hanged and he's craving for revenge . Darcy was responsible for Bleeker wife's death while Bleeker was in prison .

Exciting film inspired by historical facts set during pre-American Civil War (1861-1865) in which the Jayhackers use guerrilla warfare to destroy targets and led by men set on revenge, invading peaceful towns , making violent raids in Kansas territory . The picture efficiently describes the atmosphere of violence and confrontation among bands and bloody assaults . Stars the known hero Fess Parker-pre Daniel Boone- as the ex-con and an ex-raider whom the military governor sends to capture Darcy well played by Jeff Chandler . Along with this excellent duo there are various notorious actors and familiar faces accompanying them such as : Nicole Maurey , Henry Silva , Herbert Rudley , Frank DeKova , Don Megowan , Leo Gordon , Jack Kruschen , Glen Stange , and Harry Dean Stanton. The motion picture was well directed by Melvin Frank.

The picture was based on historical events , these were the following ones : Jayhawkers and red legs are terms that came to prominence in Kansas Territory, during the Bleeding Kansas period of the 1850s ; they were adopted by militant bands affiliated with the free-state cause during the American Civil War . These gangs were guerrillas who often clashed with pro-slavery groups from Missouri, known at the time in Kansas Territory as "Border Ruffians" or "Bushwhackers." After the Civil War, the word "Jayhawker" became synonymous with the people of Kansas, or anybody born in Kansas. Today a modified version of the term, Jayhawk, is used as a nickname for a native-born Kansan. The meaning of the jayhawker term evolved in the opening year of the American Civil War. When Charles Jennison, one of the territorial-era jayhawkers, was authorized to raise a regiment of cavalry to serve in the Union army, he characterized the unit as the "Independent Kansas Jay-Hawkers" on a recruiting poster. The regiment was officially termed the 7th Regiment Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, but was popularly known as Jennison's Jayhawkers. Thus, the term became associated with Union troops from Kansas. After the regiment was banished from the Missouri-Kansas border in the spring of 1862, it went on to participate in several battles including Union victories of the Battle of Iuka and the Second Battle of Corinth. Late in the war, the regiment returned to Kansas and contributed to Union victory in one of the last major battles in the Missouri-Kansas theater, the Battle of Mine Creek. The Jayhawker term was applied not only to Jennison and his command, but to any Kansas troops engaged in punitive operations against the civilian population of western Missouri, in which the plundering and arson that characterized the territorial struggles were repeated, but on a much larger scale. For example, the term "Jayhawkers" also encompassed Senator Jim Lane and his Kansas Brigade, which sacked and burned Osceola, Missouri. In the first year of the war, much of the movable wealth in western Missouri had been transferred to Kansas, and large swaths of western Missouri had been laid waste, by an assortment of Kansas Jayhawkers ranging from outlaws and independent military bands to rogue federal troops such as Lane's Brigade and Jennison's Jayhawkers. In February 1862, the Union command instituted martial law due to "the crime of armed depredations or jay-hawking having reached a height dangerous to the peace and posterity to the whole State (Kansas) and seriously compromising the Union cause in the border counties of Missouri.

Western that has Kansas as the prize in period just prior to the Civil War

[Mickey-2 · 7/10 · 1 August 2001]

"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

The Napoleon of Kansas.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 8 August 2014]

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."

The French meet Davy Crockett and Napoleon.

[dbdumonteil · 6/10 · 29 July 2018]

There is a French touch in this western which is closer to a political fable than to the usual stuff.Besides,the family Parker meets is French ,which is very rare in the genre.

Jeanne Dubois tells him so :"we came in America ,because we were in search of liberty";if the movie takes place at the end of the Civil War,then it was still )Napoleon (the Third , the nephew of Bonaparte)who was ruling the country (1848-1870);it was a dictatorship that led the country to war with Prussia / Germany (with disastrous consequences later in the twentieth century).Hence Jeanne's remark ,even though she does not hint at both emperors at all.

On the other hand ,Luke Darcy admires Napoleon (the First),with his inflated ego;it's not a cardboard character though ;he is a true demagogue,like far-right wing leaders ,he promises lots of things (schools ,hospitals),he's perhaps convinced he works for the greater good of his future subjects ,for he has an empire in mind ;and yet he remains deaf to the father's plea .As for Parker's wife ,her fate remains ambiguous ;as is his relationship with his enemy who reminds him of his own brother.

In spite of some implausibilities (the little girl survives the stampede),the story is not that simple .

A note about Nicole Maurey ,who recently passed away:she began her career with a masterpiece ("Journal D'Un Curé De Campagne " aka "diary of a country priest" by Robert Bresson) ,then continued to work in her native country ("Action Immédiate" )and in the US ('secret of the incas" opposite Charlton Heston.);but trying to do too many things at once ,she never became a true star in both countries.

Henry Silva ,who plays a supporting part in "the jayhawkers" ,enjoyed a career in Europa (mainly in Italy) in the seventies .

A good try in the western genre.

[searchanddestroy-1 · 7/10 · 23 April 2021]

I would say that this film is for Melvin Frank what THE TRAP was for his former buddy Norman Panama, both who earlier in their careers made comedies, only comedies, light ones. It could have been far far worse for those directors whose this was their first try in the western, crime, action genre. Of course, this is not John Ford nor Howard Hawks or even Delmer Daves nor hank Hathaway, ut Jeff Chandler is here and helps a lot. Good western.

Sluggish

[dougdoepke · 21 August 2014]

Plot-- An ex-renegade (Parker) agrees to infiltrate a renegade band in return for a pardon from the feds. Then too, he's got a personal grudge against the band's leader (Chandler) for victimizing his wife and their farm. Trouble is the leader is kind of a likable guy. So which way will the ex-renegade go.

Somewhere inside all the turgid talk is a good story of conflict between Parker's emotions and his principles. Trouble is the studio (Paramount) appears more interested in playing up the three leads than in the story itself. Thus we get a ton of talky scenes with some combination of Parker, Chandler, and Aubert instead of action or suspense. So western fans may feel cheated in the action department. I suspect four scriptwriters working on the same screenplay have something to do with that. Then too, the direction (Frank) is pretty flat. In fact, the director's resume (IMDB) appears more at home with fluff than outdoor drama. It's noteworthy too that the locations never leave greater LA, so we're also short in the scenic department. That's especially unfortunate since the film needs some sweep to match the story's scale. After all, the script is playing with the disposition of an entire state, Kansas. On the other hand, Paramount did pop for an army of extras to fill out the mustering scenes.

I winced at one point where Chandler says life is short, or words to that effect. Tragically, Chandler himself would die two years later as a result of medical malpractice. So his words here seem more than just a little prophetic. Too bad the menacing Henry Silva is largely wasted in a routine role. Some close-ups of his sinister sneer would have added needed dramatic impact. All in all, the movie's a turgid disappointment despite a capable cast, a good core conflict, and big screen VistaVision.

The Backwards Napoleon.

[hitchcockthelegend · 6/10 · 7 March 2017]

The Jayhawkers! is directed by Melvin Frank and Frank shares writing duties with A. I. Bezzerides, Frank Fenton and Joe Petracca. It stars Jeff Chandler, Fess Parker, Nicole Maurey, Henry Silva, Leo Gordon and Frank DeKova. Music is by Jerome Moross and cinematography by Loyal Griggs.

Territory of Kansas . . . Shortly before the Civil War.

In short order form the plot finds Chandler as a driven empire builder Luke Darcy, who is taking advantage of Bleeding Kansas. Insinuating himself into Darcy's gang is Cam Bleeker (Parker), who has a very personal ulterior motive for doing so.

The Ace of Spades!

It's one of those films that has some great literary ideas, with some stoic characterisations and deft hints at the turmoil hitting this part of American history, and yet it never truly delivers on its powerful potential. Action is in short supply so we are very much asked to invest fully in the key players, their motives and drives, reasoning's etc, with the Darcy/Bleeker relationship and the shades of grey holding the attention whilst simultaneously holding the play together.

Love-And-Death. That's everyone's fortune my friend.

Bonus point also are the tactics used by Darcy to build his empire, which coupled with his beliefs - and Bleeker's growing conflicted values (Bromance does that to a guy apparently) - marks it out as a good try at something more deep and meaningful. Filmed in Technicolor/VistaVision, pic looks lovely, but not enough is made of the outdoor locations, while Moross provides a big bold booming score - which is great - it's just in the wrong film as it belongs in a ripper of an action piece.

All told it's a very mixed bag, and stripped down it's a undercover story dressed up in familiar Western attire. It works for those who enjoy well written speeches and simmering tensions/passions, but it's a trick film to recommend with confidence. Oh and serious history buffs should give it a wide berth. 6/10

Hidden gem, well worth your time

[eospaulding · 9/10 · 7 July 2020]

Tightly acted and directed Western with outstanding performances from Jeff Chandler and Fess Parker.

The latter is the conscience, and Parker is terrific as the guiding force who proves effective at carrying out a difficult task while maintaining his humanity in a war-scarred environment. He lifts his screen game from the aw-shucks, King of the Wild Frontier character to legit leading man.

This is the best I've seen from Chandler, always a capable and gifted performer. Here, he holds firm to the ruthless power-monger of his Darcy character while speaking about, and occasionally showing, his human side.

So many Westerns are black versus white, good v. evil. This one gets into the gray areas, actually spends most of its 1:40 run time in the gray. I expected a B-movie, instead saw a solid A effort with a special nod to Melvin Frank, who directed and was part of the writing team.

It's a Western that shakes off the dust and sets down the six-guns, if you dig deep and think about it.

"Charismatic, Fascistic, and Wholly Fictional"

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 30 August 2006]

The Jayhawkers maybe unique in the annals of screen history in that as a film with a Civil War era plot it makes absolutely no mention of slavery. Nor are there any black people in this cast.

What we have here in ante-bellum Kansas is the story of Luke Darcy who envisions himself as starting some kind of fascistic territorial republic in the struggle for Kansas's loyalty. Jeff Chandler plays Darcy and he is a fascinatingly evil man with a great deal of charisma.

To bring him down military governor Herbert Rudley uses ex-renegade raider Fess Parker. Parker and Chandler have a history and it involves Parker's late wife who Chandler ran off with and abandoned.

Parker's got ample reason to just shoot him down like a dog, but Rudley wants him alive to stand trial. Complicating things further is Nicole Maurey and her two kids who Parker's fallen for and then Chandler takes an interest when he sees her.

The story does get a bit silly at times, but the players are all doing their best. Henry Silva plays one of Chandler's raiders who has an incredible jealousy of Parker and a barely disguised gay crush on Chandler.

Jerome Moross wrote the music score and it's lively and quickens the pace of this film. Fans of the Wagon Train series will recognize parts of the score as Wagon Train's theme.

The story of Kansas before the Civil War, usually with John Brown as the protagonist has supplied the cinema with a whole range of films. The Jayhawkers with the charismatic, fascistic, but wholly fictitious Luke Darcy is far from the best one ever done.

Love it!

[MisterMickey · 10/10 · 20 May 2003]

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.

OK brand

[jdcowtown · 4/10 · 3 November 2020]

Look, I had to work to get through this one, despite the unlikable broken characters,wooden acting, the fantasy historical story and plot that is over the bazillion level of improbability as I discovered on wikipedia

Melvin Frank said at the time

"This is no time to satirize western myth; people won't stand for the making fun of something sacred. Actually, why The Jayhawkers is in the outdoor category and has outlaws and guns and horses, it's a western only in that it takes place on the then-frontier of 1859. Something frightening happened in Kansas on the eve of the Civil War... A man on horseback tried to become A Man on Horseback. He took over only a few towns- but what would've happened if he'd seized Kansas for his empire and the Civil War had allowed him to set up a kingdom in the West? The power mad character has always threatened freedom. We had long wanted to use this theme in a story about the American past and when we found this story... it clicked."

so perhaps there is more to this story than meets the eye.

Nevertheless, this is just an OK show in my book. The ultra violent misogynistic megalomaniac Chandler is weighed down by the others and the repulsive role. Fess is avuncular to the point of being miscast. The rest try hard and as always Henry and Leo deliver the goods but it all to no avail.

The fact of the matter is for mine the weakest part of this film is Jerome Moross music score! It is just inappropriate in places derailing the tension such as it is. That is not to say this film would be better if Gershenson, Bakelienkoff or Mancini worked it over but I reckon it would get it another star.

Ultimately a nasty story about disturbing misguided immoral people and actually quite gloomy and upsetting. But hey, it's a western! Enjoy it, I did!

Extremely Underrated

[David_Brown · 10/10 · 16 August 2012]

This film is one of the more underrated and seldom seen western classics around. A big reason is that is was done by Paramount, who with the exception of the films of Gary Cooper and later John Wayne, rarely did westerns. Beyond that, Paramount has no regard for their post 1949 films (The earlier films are owned by Universal). Basically, except "The Godfather", "Star Trek", and a few others, you will not even find 70s and 80s films like "Top Gun" on TV, or even remastered for DVD. I think "The Jayhawkers!" is outstanding, but it is a film that requires thought to understand why. Jeff Chandler's Luke Darcy is a character based on William Clarke Quantrill (1837-1865)who was the leader of a bunch of Confederates raiders during the Civil War (In his bunch were Frank & Jesse James). But this character goes far beyond what Quantrill was. He was a very charismatic individual who can seduce people into doing whatever he wanted: Sort of like Napoleon was. Jeanne Dubois (Nicole Maurey), mentioned that during the film (Something that Cam Bleeker (Fess Parker) and most Americans would not understand). Which is why having a Frenchwoman in the film was important (Not just as a love interest). It also explains why Bleeker's wife threw herself at Darcy, before she died, Lordan (Henry Silva) was almost like a puppy dog at his feet, and Bleeker was reluctant to turn him over to the Army (Despite knowing to a large extent, he was responsible for his wife's death). Spoilers ahead: The way that Bleeker was supposed to handle Darcy was turn him over to be hanged, but instead (After beating him up in a fight) had him fight in a duel in a bar (Which of course, Bleeker won), and carried his body out. When soldiers wanted to drag him, Bleeker said carry him. Bleeker then surrendered to the Army, and the Col. said: "I don't know why, you did things the way you did, and I don't know why I am letting you go, but somehow, I think we are both right." (At the beginning of the film, Bleeker broke out of prison, and after being caught, at his ranch that was purchased by Jeanne and fer family (She has a boy and a girl), was offered his freedom for Darcy's capture). So at the very end, Bleeker and Jeanne who by then fell in love will be free to go back to the ranch and live happily ever after. Basically these were very complex characters, nothing cardboard about them. The best were Darcy who really liked Bleeker and Jeanne (Perhaps because he respected them (Bleeker for being a Raider who broke out of prison, and Jeanne for her strength and honor)), despite being someone who wanted to be a dictator), and Jeanne. Jeanne is my favorite. She is a strong character, with a positive moral compass, who survived as a woman with no husband, and two kids, and is the only reason why Bleeker did not turn out bad. This is a film that should be seen more often (Maybe on the Western Channel or Turner Classic Movies), and perhaps it will be more appreciated for the classic it is.

a different opinion

[rockinghorse · 28 October 2004]

This movie made me sick when I saw it on TV many years ago. Jeff Chandler's character is decent, a guy you don't want to see taken down? He says to Fess Parker's character, regarding the way he treated the man's dead (at his hands) wife, "To me, a good woman is like a good bottle of wine: once you've used it up, you throw the container away." He goes through women like kleenexes and disposes of them with less mercy. He took the man's wife, seduced her, then killed her when he got bored with her.

This is decent?

Fess Parker's character likes him?

There is no reason for Fess Parker not to kill the disgusting creep on sight.

But maybe the people who praise this movie also agree with that characterization of women.

Sacrilegious in terms of historical inaccuracy

[steveweing · 2/10 · 24 March 2022]

This movie makes the Jayhawkers the bad crowd in Kansas. In reality they were hero's who saved democracy, and saved free people from murder and destruction by border ruffians.

Bloody Kansas

[telegonus · 8/10 · 4 December 2001]

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.

Jeff's best role

[ldoyon01 · 10/10 · 2 January 2007]

Jeff Chandler's performance as Luke Darcy is a classic. He's a megalomaniac, but in some ways you're drawn to him. You know he's a bad guy, yet you're struck by his intelligence and charisma. The line "I'm giving you your dream, and don't worry about me, I've got Kansas." is a classic and it tells you he's got to be stopped. I wish this movie was on DVD, along with his other fine films Broken Arrow, and Pillars Of The Sky. As noted, He might've been able to tackle roles as a character actor had it not been for a tragic mistake during back surgery at the young age of 42. I have always been a fan of Jeff Chandler, and wish more of his films were on DVD.

The Fountain Of Youth

[hoovie70 · 9/10 · 24 June 2019]

Daniel Boone, who has a huge role in The Jayhawkers, never aged a bit from his pioneer days in the Kentucky frontier. Only thing more peculiar is that even though he has a major part, he is not mentioned in the casting list.