Belle Starr (film)

Belle Starr is a 1941 American Western film directed by Irving Cummings and starring Randolph Scott, Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, and Shepperd Strudwick. Written by Lamar Trotti and based on a story by Niven Busch and Cameron Rogers, it was produced by Kenneth Macgowan for 20th Century Fox, and shot in Technicolor.

The film is very loosely based on the life of 19th-century American outlaw Belle Starr. It was the fourth film and the third sound film to portray Starr on the screen, but it was the first major Hollywood production to do so. Its success led to many more such portrayals, although the real Starr was fairly obscure during her lifetime.

Plot
At the end of the Civil War, Belle Shirley is reunited with her brother Ed and intends to continue the fight for the South, of which she is a part. She defends Joe Starr, a rebel who won't defend himself against Major Grail, a Yankee and friend of her brother's from before the war, who wants to find Belle's love again. Ed invites him to dinner at their rich estate, but that's when Joe Starr turns up, having heard what Belle has to say about him. She's not averse to talking to him. A horse thief who has had dealings with Belle in the past warns the army and Captain Starr has to leave but is wounded. His loyal lieutenant, Blue Dock, takes him back to Belle, who tries to do everything she can to protect him with the arrival of the Major. But the Major not only arrests the rebel, but also Ed, before burning down Belle's house.

Mad with rage, she wants revenge and to lead the fight in the South, so she joins the rebels. She organises the escape of the captain and her brother, who prefers to return to the city, while her sister joins Joe Starr's ranks for good. Together they set out to reconquer Missouri, driving out the northerners before marrying and becoming the leaders of the rebellion, with a price on their heads.

One day, the Coole brothers, renowned assassins, join their ranks. The captain goes on an expedition with them without Belle. When her husband has not yet returned, Belle is visited by her brother, who warns her of the actions of these expeditions, which rob and kill at the instigation of the new recruits, who mercilessly slaughter him without his sister noticing. In her grief she learns from her husband that he has done this kind of thing, and when she offers to take him to Texas he refuses, wanting to carry out one last mission to kidnap a governor. Seeing their differences, she gives him back his ring and flees. She intends to turn herself in and, to protect him, denounce him to the northerners, but she learns from her nurse that this is a trap for the captain. Belle runs to warn him, telling her nurse that she will always love him despite what he has done, but is shot in her tracks by the horse thief who wants to reward her. The captain turns back, believing that it was blue dock who fired the shot to warn him. In front of the assassin, he denies that the body is that of his wife so that the thief doesn't get the money, and the Major lets him do it, saddened by the death of the woman he has always loved. The captain gives him her ring before hearing slaves say that it is a legend and that she is not dead, like a fox.

Cast

 * Randolph Scott as Sam Starr
 * Gene Tierney as Belle Shirley / Belle Starr
 * Dana Andrews as Maj. Thomas Crail
 * John Shepperd as Ed Shirley
 * Elizabeth Patterson as Sarah
 * Chill Wills as Blue Duck
 * Louise Beavers as Mammy Lou
 * Olin Howland as Jasper Trench
 * Paul Burns as Sergeant
 * Joseph Sawyer as John Cole
 * Joseph Downing as Jim Cole
 * Howard C. Hickman as Col. Thornton
 * Charles Trowbridge as Col. Bright
 * James Flavin as Sergeant
 * Charles Middleton as Carpetbagger