If anyone is expecting any true notes out of this film concerning Belle Starr they are in for a sad disappointment. One of the very few things that this film got right was that Belle Starr as befit a lady to the manor born rode side saddle. You wouldn't catch Calamity Jane doing that.If you saw this film you would think that Belle's career ended a few years after the Civil War was over. In fact Belle's time on earth was 1848 to 1889 and in that period Belle Shirley married several times, the last being a Cherokee Indian named Sam Starr. No hint of that background in Randolph Scott, he plays the part as the real Randolph Scott was, a courtly southern gentleman from Virginia.I don't know if Gene Tierney was in the Scarlett O'Hara sweepstakes, but in playing Belle Starr she does it in the fiddle-dee-dee tradition that Vivien Leigh did in Gone With The Wind. She's got all the men in the area ready to do and die for her and that includes Dana Andrews the Yankee major who is from Missouri also and has a real case of the hots for her. But Dana does his duty no matter how distasteful it is and Tierney's heart is only for Randolph Scott.The real Belle was quite a bit more earthy a character and had a few children as well. One of them, a daughter became the madame of a brothel later in life. This film is entertaining with Tierney acting like Scarlett O'Hara and the plot lifted from that other Twentieth Century Fox classic about a Missouri outlaw, Jesse James.Belle Starr will never make the top ten list of any of the cast members.

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation undoubtedly produced their chick flick western "Belle Starr" to cash in on their success with their earlier outlaw biography "Jesse James" with Tyrone Power. Moreover, this biographical oater appropriates the post-Civil War South as its setting and uses both the 'Lost Cause' sentiments of old die-hard rebels and the evils of Reconstruction in the Missouri to shape its protagonist. Indeed, Fox appears to have cast the beautiful Gene Tierney as the eponymous heroine in her fourth role based on her striking resemblance to "Gone with the Wind" beauty Vivian Leigh. "Cisco Kid" director Irving Cummings and "Drums Along the Mohawk" scenarist Lamar Trotti play fast and loose with the truth about the title character. They use African-Americans as storytellers to frame their story. In fact, the film unfolds largely in flashback when a young black girl discovers a doll in the ruins of the Shirley Plantation. Her father declares that it must have belonged to Belle Shirley and the story picks up after the Civil War. Later, "Belle Starr" concludes with Belle's death and three African-Americans describe Belle as if she were a mythic supernatural entity that can shape-shift in to a red fox. Not surprisingly, "Belle Starr" concerns the legend rather than the life of this notorious dame outlaw. For example, she lived longer in real life than her cinematic counterpart, but she died in real life the way that she does in the movie version, getting shot from ambush by an assassin. Typically, Hollywood movies in conformity with the Production Code Administration had to punish film characters that strayed from the law by killing them at the end of the movie. In "Belle Starr," the heroine is riding hell-bent for leather to town to give herself up after she realizes the error of her way. Naturally, her death is pre-ordained.

My interest is movie music, featured and incidental, especially Westerns and John Ford Westerns in particular.I noticed that Belle Starr used the same music theme as in Ford's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". Apparently, this was also used in "Young Mr Lincoln". As the cues are not identified in films generally, does anyone have any information on the "love theme" used in hes three films? I believe it may have been Alfred Newman, but does anyone know what it was called and whether an orchestrated recoded version is available? Secondly, Ford used the old 19c song "Lorena" in "The Searchers" and "The Horse Soldiers", is this available in recorded instrumental, orchestrated form?

Scarlett diminished away from Tara. The red earths of the farm was from where she drew her strength.Therefore, the pale, fickle imitation of "Belle Starr" cannot thrive off Margaret Mitchell's legendary story. It takes every crumb it can scavenge off David O. Selznick's story, and possibly every frame that ended up on the cutting room floor. The film stoops to terribly low lengths. Belle loses her brother, Scarlett lost her Mother. The Mammie character. Southern determination. It's civil war setting is enough to make the entire laughable production, conceived in a studio bound setting definitely not one to be watched. Although the "Gone With the Wind" novel, brilliant but appalling racist, manages to steer clear of the controversial offence it may have triggered, "Belle Starr" seems to relish in it. Trimmings, interior sets, costumes, Gene Tierney or no Gene Tierney, seem to save it. The colour cinematography is no doubt pretty, but Randolph Scott and Dana Andrews acting like hams in the background certainly provides no aid to Belle's crusades. Hundreds of Scarlett O'Hara hopefuls did better away from the splendour in different roles, but Gene Tierney's attempt to reprise some of the 1939 glory, falls overwhelmingly and pathetically flat.Stay away from this one...far, far away. Minor, unfriendly, unconvincing FOX Westerns do terrible things to the stomach. Rating: 5/10