Belle Starr

Gene Tierney is just awful as a gun-totin' Scarlett O'Hara who knows how to put the "Tara" in terrorist. Her Southern accent is irritating, and she had not yet learned either how to act or how to be enchantingly lovely. (In one scene, trying to look determined, she positively squints.) A plot more racist than GWTW and a wooden Sheperd Strudwick don't help, and, although the ending (showing how "Miz Belle" became a legend) is rather clever, by the time it arrives you don't care.

This highly fantasized account of Belle Starr isn't all bad, but is little more than a complete clone of the highly successful Gone With The Wind. Tierney plays an average part in an almost identical fashion, most of the scenes and plotlines are directly ripped or converted and the film generally strives to recreate the atmosphere of GWtW. It's somewhat of a cash-in, but that doesn't prevent the film from being enjoyable. The main problem is that these references encourage active comparison.

An overly romantic Southern gal becomes a overly romantic bandit queen. Comically so. Unintentional. It was just the way they exaggerated her glamor shots. I know Gene Tierney was a beauty deserving of having that exploited, but the way they did the close-ups was so overblown compared to everything else that it became funny. On top of that, they made up so much about the legend of Belle Starr that hardly anything had any relevance to the real thing. Hollywood hokum deluxe! Glittering hokum!