"Jesse James: The Making of a Legend" By Larry C. Bradley Larren Publishers, Nevada, Missouri, 1980 Chapter 4, "The Making of Jesse James," Excert Pages, 55-64

"???..King was faced with a difficult problem of eliminating the noise of automobile motors, as most of these scenes were near highways. The Missouri Highway Patrol sent in all of its available officers to block off the roads, however, a dozen or more scenes were ruined until the deputy sheriff delivered the ultimatum that "the first one who lets out a peep while the next scene is bein' taken will be fined five dollars."

Occasionally a woman in the dense, shuffling crowd fainted from the heat, weariness, or the pressure of the elbows pushing against her ribs. When that happened,, production stopped while the woman was revived. There were some problems that King and the deputy sheriff had not figured on. A dramatic scene was spoiled by a dog barking up a tree and a rooster crowing loudly during each "take'." Exasperated, King finally shouted "QUIET" and the crowing stopped abruptly.

King had to order many retakes of scenes. With the temperature at a steady 100 degrees or better, the entire cast had been getting redder and redder in the face with each exposure to the sun. To the four makeup experts on the ground the process had been so gradual they failed to notice it. But when the studio makeup man saw the clips he immediately detected the difference. The faces showed too much red for Technicolor filming.

To meet the situation, the studio was connected by teletype with Pineville. After viewing the clips the studio had been able to consult with the makeup men and told them how to correct the daily varia?tions in the facial appearance of the players.

In Noel, where the film stars were virtually mobbed on arrival, townspeople were gradually getting back to normal, although Power and Fonda still had to be careful about appearing too frequently in public. At first, they were Mr. Power and Mr. Fonda, but after they had been in town for two or three days the townfolk began to regard them as old friends. At their insistence they were soon greeted with "Hello, Ty," and "Howdy, Hank."

When they began filming at the Crowder farm, King welcomed visitors, but was forced to have the roadway leading to the home blocked off, in order that the delicate sound instruments might not pick up the roar of automobile motors. Ingenious motorists discovered another road, but it was across the river from the Crowder farm. The natives, hearing their plight, paddled boats to the scene and ferried the visitors across the river for a fee of twenty-five cents-after which there was another charge of twenty-five cents for standing on the other side of the river to watch the proceedings.

Several young girls slipped onto the lawn and asked a couple of bit players for their autographs. They had to be escorted off the lot. "We tried to outsmart the crowd," said Power, "by starting work at daylight, but we found our audience waiting for us. In fact, one farmer complained about our late start. He had milked five cows, fed his pigs, driven into town, and arrived an hour too early!"

Filming commenced showing Jesse cutting firewood when Barshee and his men rode up. Barshee asked him if he owned this farm and Jesse responded that his mother did.

Mrs. Samuel, seated in a chair under an old tree, was shelling butter beans in her lap. Barshee went through his usual routine, but Mrs. Samuel was not interested. Becoming impatient, he told her that "either you'll take what I'm offering everybody else or you'll get nothing ... and we'll get the land just the same!"????

??Everyone was quiet. Without a word, Donlevy and Fonda went into a clinch. Suddenly a raucous din of guinea-fowl chatter floated in, ruining the sound effects. "What's that?" asked King. Mrs. Crowder explained that those were her prized guineas. Robert Webb put in a session of haggling with her, then bought them from her for thirty-five cents apiece. Helped by a sweating, swearing crew of carpenters, electricians and handymen, he rounded up the fowls and sold them to a local butcher.

When King began his next day's work, more guinea hens squawked and fussed on the farm. Webb thought he had deguineaed. He bought these guineas too. For several days he bought guinea hens every day and sold them to the butcher. It seemed to Webb that these guinea hens must have guinea-pig blood. Finally he discovered that he had been buying and selling the same guineas over and over. The butcher had been bringing them back to Mrs. Crowder's farm every morning at daybreak. It was merely a case of native shrewdness outsmarting a man from a big city who carried a thick roll of bills in his pocket. After all, a well-known yardstick applied to any business deal concerns the motto "let the purchaser beware," and this taught Webb to protect himself in such dealings.

"We stopped that guinea buying in a hurry," Webb said. "We ate them whether in the mood or not."

Nancy Kelly mentioned her distaste of the guinea menu and wished she had a steak for dinner. A proprietor of a Noel meat market overheard the remark, and that afternoon sent her a steak so huge that Miss Kelly gave a dinner party for several members of the cast.

A sizable number of sight-seers from Neosho had gone to Noel for a glimpse of Power. Those who stayed at home got to see him, and some even got his autograph. Power had made a trip to Neosho, apparently to purchase a few sport shirts and to get a soft drink at a drug store.

Unrecognized, Power walked into a men's store and was busily engaged in selecting shirts when a salesman from Cincinnati "broke the news" that "Jesse" was in town. In a few minutes, the store began to fill with the curious and Power began to edge out. The clerk who sold the shirts, proudly exhibited the actor's autograph. Power then went to a nearby drugstore for refreshments, but left by a back door when a crowd appeared at the front.

Brian Donlevy upset the script and turned the villain into a hero. Donlevy was making a triumphant entry into the Missouri town of Sedalia in a buggy pulled by a spirited horse. Preceding him was the town band and a group of small boys, and following him were several hundred bit players garbed as townspeople.

At least 1,000 natives and visitors had gathered around the square to watch the filming when suddenly, Donlevy's horse bolted, knocked the flames that swept the wrecked house. In the foreground Mrs. Samuel, eyes closed, blood on her face, lay still on blankets spread on the ground, her head pillowed on other blankets. Beside her kneeled the Major. Sullen and angry Barshee looked down at her . A farmer's wife was cleaning Mrs. Samuel's face??.

Miss" Darwell spent hours lying on a blanket in the lawn of the Crowder farm pretending to be dead. She was given the appearance of death after makeup men had dabbed artificial blood at the corners of her mouth as though she were bleeding. Expert technicians went about the business of burning the home, a difficult job to do without harming the structure. Long smoke fuses which, when ignited, sent smoke billowing from the windows, were placed back of each window. Also, inside the windows were placed metal troughs in which chemical flames were created.

While the crowds were large each day at Noel, and at the scene of operations, Labor Day was another record breaker in the number of people who visited the vicinity. Though no definite check was made, it was estimated that the crowd was nearly 50,000.

There was plenty of action on the set for the visitors when scenes depicting an attempt to burn the home of the James brothers gave native extras a chance to play their parts as volunteer firemen. It was estimated approximately 150 residents of the community were used in the various scenes.

The crowd which eventually gathered around the home had the unique experience of seeing King film the final scene of the picture. That scene depicted Henry Hull as Major Cobb, newspaper editor friend of the James brothers, delivering the eulogy at - Jesse James' grave while sorrowing friends and relatives hovered nearby.

"Jesse was an outlaw, a bandit, a criminal," said the Major. "But we aren't ashamed of him. Maybe it's because we understand a little that he wasn't to blame for what his times made him. All I know is, he was one of the doggonedest, dadblamedest buckaroos that ever rode across the United States of America."

One man came up to Henry King and said he was Jesse James. "As a matter of fact," said King, "he bore a striking resemblance to the famous outlaw. And he was familiar with every detail of James' life. He said that Bob Ford hadn't killed him." It was discovered later that he was just a harmless old fellow who lived near Pineville. "But he sure scared me for a minute," said King. "It would be embarrassing to no end to find after making Jesse James that the outlaw himself was sitting in the balcony watching it!"

Visibly fatigued after a week on location under a hot sun, the actors and other members of the company were looking forward to a brief respite from the grind. Several amusing incidents occurred in which the stars had figured. A young woman obtained special permission to take a snapshot of Power, and then became so excited she turned the camera around and snapped a picture of herself. Power heard about the incident by accident, and promptly had a large autographed photograph of himself sent to the young woman.

Shortly thereafter, a young lady walked up to Power and told him a friend had made her a wager she would be unable to shake hands with the young star. Power not only shook hands, but chatted with the young lady several minutes. Meanwhile, the woman's husband had been busy recording the meeting with the motion picture camera. "You won't have any trouble proving you won that bet now, honey," he told his wife.

Fonda had been particularly impressed with the acting ability of the natives employed as extras in the various scenes. "I saw a young mother with a baby on the set the other day whose naturalness of actions was to me real art," he told his friends. "I can see that we actors are going to have to work hard during this picture so that it, won't appear that we are just acting.???.."