"Emmett Dalton & Henry Starr…Bank Robbers and Movie Stars " Topic

" was reading up on Henry Starr just recently and just thought that it might make for an interesting blog entry. Before I get into more about Henry Starr, I thought I would share why I was reading up on Henry Starr. At work, we got talking about the movie, "Tombstone" (1993), with Kurt Russell and one of the guys mentioned that he heard the at the old time silent movie scene at the beginning of "Tombstone" was an actual bank robber from the Old West. I knew that was wrong, but I remember hearing that once before too. So I went on to explain that was an actor from the first real Hollywood blockbuster, "The Great Train Robbery" (1903.) (Yeah, I have some great useless trivia knowledge.) I also explained that he was not totally wrong in thinking that Hollywood of that period did use actually known convicted criminals to portray criminals in the movies. Two famous 'Wild West' bank robbers that I am aware of that Hollywood used in making ‘Wild West' movies were Emmett Dalton and Henry Starr, both from the Indian Territory, later to be Oklahoma…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting article, but perhaps not quite the whole story!

Circa 1908, a company called Oklahoma Natural Mutoscene produced "The Great Cache Bank Robbery," an astonishing piece of Western history on celluloid.

The full story of this early cinema historical masterpiece would take me an hour or more to put here, but let's just say that this is the REAL DEAL when it comes to history come alive.

Old Oklahoma bandit (and future Gubernatorial candidate!) Al Jennings robbed the bank in Cache, Oklahoma, in early 1890's with a gang of fellow desperados. They rode off to hide out in the Wichita Mountains of Southwestern Oklahoma, but were tracked down and taken after a shoot out with the pursuing posse.
The membership of said posse reads like a "Who's Who" of legendary characters. Marshalls Bill Tilghman, Heck Thomas, and Frank Canton were leaders, but figuring it would be a good idea to have an "experienced scout" to ride with them, they invited along none other than Comanche War Chief Quanah Parker!

Sorry, but I messed up the above post and it went up unfinished. Here it is complete, for whatever you may find it worth.

Interesting article, but perhaps not quite the whole story!

In 1908, a company called Oklahoma Natural Mutoscene produced "The Great Cache Bank Robbery," an astonishing piece of Western history on celluloid.

The full story of this early cinema historical masterpiece would take me an hour or more to put here, but let's just say that this is the REAL DEAL when it comes to history come alive, and this is the SHORT version.

Old Oklahoma bandit (and future Gubernatorial candidate!) Al Jennings robbed the bank in Cache, Oklahoma, in the early 1890's with a gang of fellow desperados. They rode off to hide out in the Wichita Mountains of Southwestern Oklahoma, but were tracked down and taken after a shoot out with the pursuing posse.

The membership of said posse reads like a "Who's Who" of legendary characters. Marshalls Bill Tilghman, Heck Thomas, and Frank Canton were leaders, but figuring it would be a good idea to have an "experienced scout" to ride with them, they invited along none other than Comanche War Chief Quanah Parker!

Jennings did his time in prison, and while in the process of going straight (yes, criminals actually did that in those days…), he was approached to play himself in the film to be made of the events. Not only did he jump at the chance to play himself, but so did all those posse men listed above--including Parker!

Filmed on location in Cache, most of the town turned out to watch the remarkable event of a Motion Picture being filmed in their tiny town (you can see them all, standing along the porch of a block of buildings during an uneven pan shot at one point, all dressed for 1908). However, not quite everyone seemed to have heard about it.

When Jennings and gang rode up to the stand-alone bank, dismount, and raced in with pistols drawn, there were employees and customers who thought it was the real thing all over again, and some can be seen bailing out of windows!

The shootouts (there are two) are wonderful in that you see the way that real gunmen used their weapons, and the free for all nature of the action--wounded men on the ground still blazing away in clouds of smoke, and generally all Hell breaking loose in the streets--is simply amazing.

This film was made prior to the development of the "Close Up," so faces are hard to make out, but ramrod straight Quanah Parker can't be missed (he was in his 70's), nor can portly Heck Thomas, and moustached Bill Tilghman.

Indeed, the two old Lawmen were involved with the film not out of ego, but financial need. Without pensions, these maturing Western Heroes were making the film in order to generate some retirement security by taking this film (and another, "The Passing of The Oklahoma Outlaws") around to communities and narrating the story line while it ran to no doubt rapt audiences.

I have an "edited" copy of this jaw dropping miracle of history (more Western, though, than Cinematic) and--Son Of A Gun!--it can be seen in its entirety here: YouTube link

It's not the best version I've seen visually, and don't expect an obvious story progression (there are no title cards or narration) but stick with it, adjust the room lights, stand on one foot with a stainless still fork in your extended left hand if you must, but WATCH IT!

TVAG

Actually, the above post was meant to be preceded by this one!

Henry Starr is a character of interest to me and my family as it was my Great Grandfather, US Deputy Marshall Floyd Wilson, whom he shot dead in 1892, and launched a series of trials and appeals that made legal history.

My Grandfather, John Roy Wilson, was only a kid when the wagon bearing his father's body brought him home to Fort Smith, and it was the only memory he had of him.

Starr first shot then "executed" Floyd Wilson when pursued for robbery. I'll spare the details, but let's say that if Wilson's Winchester had not jammed after he fired a warning shot to make Starr stop, history might well have been different. Indeed, my notoriously bad luck in Western Gunfight games might have a genetic origin!

Besides the available historical record, my older brother has spent some years researching the events, even making expeditions to locate--successfully--the exact site of the shooting, as well as old newspaper records in Lenopah, the town nearest to it, and in Fort Smith.

Interestingly, some years ago, my Father, Brother and I drove up to Lenopah to present the local museum with a framed photograph of Marshall Wilson, and it was arranged for the local paper to cover it. Better still, the descendants of the Starr family were to be there, too. We were all looking forward to shake their hands and show we had no hard feelings after a century, and we felt we shared with them a remarkable bit of our State's history.

Unfortunately, they were no-shows, and we are left wondering if these members of the Starr family were afraid we would be hostile, or if there was still shame or embarrassment attached.

Henry went on to his reward--violently--as Floyd had, and they should be left peacefully in their respective cemeteries.

Henry Starr was actually a remarkable man, and the only murder he ever committed appears to have been that of Floyd Wilson. They lived near the end of an age when it actually seems as if young men could make conscious choices about following the trail as an Outlaw or a Lawman, and sometimes that trail wound from one side to the other and back again.

Henry was undoubtedly brave, quick witted, and thirsty for adventure. Floyd was the same, though his start as a Lawman appears to have begun when as a young spur-of-the-moment civilian volunteer he threw in with famous Black Lawman, Bass Reeves, in the shoot-out capture of a felon the Marshall was trying to arrest.

Henry was brought up by honest folk to be an honest man, but also while young, he seemed suddenly to turn to crime, and the die was cast for him, too.

I would encourage interested parties to look up "The Last of the Horseback Outlaws," a good and highly readable biography of Henry Starr.

TVAG

Quite interesting Patrick!
Thanks for share!.

Amicalement
Armand