The first time I saw this film, being a "horse crazy" kid, it made me idolize Belle Starr--but only because I thought the movie was supposed to be about some famous horsewoman! (Like I said, I was a really horse-crazy kid!!) A few years ago, I was researching my family history and found out I was actually related to Belle Starr so this movie took on much more significance and I searched for a long time to find a copy. Then, when I watched it again, I was very disappointed by the almost complete lack of historical accuracy! To say the film is "based upon" historic figures is TECHNICALLY correct, but it is definitely NOT an accurate depiction of the "real" Myra "Belle" Shirley-Starr! In fact, ONLY the names are the same. Belle was a much stronger, darker, cruder, more troubled woman and her ties to the most notorious outlaws (like the James-Younger gang) along with her own devious, scandalous behavior make her much more fascinating than she was in this movie. In her case, the true story is MUCH more interesting! It's a good movie, BUT, if you want to know the true story of Belle Starr, you won't find it in this one.

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.

This film is technically very up to date even though it is from 1941. It is an expensive color production, trying to stay on the wake of Gone With The Wind. Where the film aged considerably is on the script which is either patronizing in relation to Afro Americans or downright racist like when it shows Randolph Scott scaring carpetbaggers out of Missouri. Gene Tierney with a heavy southern accent is very good as Belle and so is Randolph Scott as Sam Starr. It is very rare to see Scott in a romantic part and he comes out great. It is curious that they show the three Younger brothers with a different surname, Cole. That is quite a direct reference to Cole Younger, yet they changed the names. Dana Andrews is the Union Major Grail who is in love with Belle but places duty above everything. "Belle Starr" has aged but it is still an interesting film to see.

This shoddy little production is a cheap and pale imitation of "Gone With the Wind", with a horribly mis-cast Gene Tierney struggling with accent and script. Randolph Scott and Dana Andrews don't help by being planks of wood.Still Gene looks great, and the costumes are nice, - but the whole thing is so unbelievable. And so obviously designed to capitalise on the success of GWTW, even down to the Mammie character played here well by Louise Beavers. And the film is very racist - almost like "Birth of A Nation" - with the newly liberated blacks portrayed as getting above their station and, in one scene, getting chased out of town by Gene and Randolph.