August 21 - Ride With the Devil

This is a movie with a scene that happens today – August 21. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.  

RIDE WITH THE DEVIL

Jake Rodel and Jack Bull Chiles join the pro-Southern Bushwhackers after  Jack’s father is murdered by pro-Union Jayhawkers. Their band is fed by Southern sympathizers, but they are ambushed at a house and almost killed, while the house is burned to the ground. Jake sends a neighbor of his who has been captured to Union headquarters with an offer to trade three other prisoners of the Bushwhackers for two Southern prisoners, but this offer is refused, so the three are killed. The neighbor later kills Jake’s father. The band split up for the winter. Jake, Jack Bull, George Clyde and his former slave Holt live in a shack built into the hillside on the Evans farm. Jack Bull and the Evans widowed daughter Sue Lee Shelly become romantically involved. Jack Bull later dies of wounds received in a skirmish.  In the spring they join Quantrill’s forces. On August 21, 1863 [1:31:02 to 1:49:02]  Quantrill leads them on a raid on Lawrence, Kansas. When Rodel spares a young boy, he arouses the wrath of Pitt Mackeson, who intentionally shoots Jake in the leg during the retreat from Lawrence.  When they return to Missouri they learn Sue Lee has had Jack Bull’s child, but everyone thinks Jake is the father and he eventually decides to marry her. They leave for California and Holt heads for Texas. 

A decent war film. Really more of a character study as this film does not have a lot of combat scenes. This movie explores the Civil War in the West, an area that is rarely touched on.

Black Flag: Guerilla Warfare on the Western Border 1861-1865 by Thomas Goodrich (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, In, 1995) at pages 71-92 gives the date of the raid

 Producer - James Schamus, Robert F. Colesberry and Ted Hope

Director -Ang Lee

Screenplay - James Schamus

Runtime – 2 hours 18 minutes        

Released – November 26, 1999

Starring -

Skeet Ulrich as Jack Bull Chiles

Jewel as Sue Lee Shelley

Jeffrey Wright  as Daniel Holt

Simon Baker as George Clyde

Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Pitt Mackeson

Jim Caviezel as Black John Ambrose

Tom Guiry as Riley Crawford

Jonathan Brandis as Cave Wyatt

Mark Ruffalo as Alf Bowden

Tom Wilkinson as Orton Brown

Margo Martindale as Wilma Brown

John Ales as William Quantrill