Add another treatment to the famed saga of the James-Younger Gang and the infamous Great Northfield Minnesota Raid. The most recent prior TV version of events premiered less than a year ago courtesy of Bill O'Reilly's Warm Springs Productions, and because of that, comparisons between the two efforts can be reasonably expected. At a full hour, the 'Legends and Lies' series had a bit more time to develop the events leading up to the failed bank robbery. With only about twenty two minutes of screen time, this current series keeps things crisp and to the point.
Both series wound up using a technique that I find kind of interesting, but because L&L came first, I have to wonder if there was a bit of swiping here. It's when one of the principals fires a weapon, the camera tracks the path of the bullet 'Matrix' style in slow motion to it's intended target.
What I haven't seen in other documentaries regarding this event is the emphasis that was placed on naming the Northfield citizens who came to the defense of their town. Chief among them was young Henry Wheeler, a twenty two year old medical student working at his father's drug store who embraced the now well documented 'if you see something, say something' approach. Along with other town-folk who grabbed whatever weapon they could get their hands on, the good people of Northfield began firing away as the gunmen from Missouri attempted to rob their bank.
The one stunning revelation made here that I haven't seen or heard of before had to do with the aftermath of the gun battle. Bank clerk Joseph Lee Heywood was killed by one of the outlaws after stating that the bank's safe couldn't be opened because it was on a time lock. This is not new information, however the episode goes on to reveal that the safe was unlocked the entire time! I have never heard this before, and it seems quite improbable to me that one of the gang members who entered the bank would not have attempted a pull on the safe's handle just for the sport of it. Nevertheless, an expected haul of seventeen thousand dollars (a quarter million in today's terms) wound up being a twenty six dollar heist!
Minor discrepancies like that aside, this was a nice, quick capsule sized version of one of history's most notorious incidents. The story cites the 1972 movie "The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid" starring Cliff Robertson and Robert Duvall as one of cinema's better movie treatments, but for my money, I'd go with 1980's "The Long Riders".
Both series wound up using a technique that I find kind of interesting, but because L&L came first, I have to wonder if there was a bit of swiping here. It's when one of the principals fires a weapon, the camera tracks the path of the bullet 'Matrix' style in slow motion to it's intended target.
What I haven't seen in other documentaries regarding this event is the emphasis that was placed on naming the Northfield citizens who came to the defense of their town. Chief among them was young Henry Wheeler, a twenty two year old medical student working at his father's drug store who embraced the now well documented 'if you see something, say something' approach. Along with other town-folk who grabbed whatever weapon they could get their hands on, the good people of Northfield began firing away as the gunmen from Missouri attempted to rob their bank.
The one stunning revelation made here that I haven't seen or heard of before had to do with the aftermath of the gun battle. Bank clerk Joseph Lee Heywood was killed by one of the outlaws after stating that the bank's safe couldn't be opened because it was on a time lock. This is not new information, however the episode goes on to reveal that the safe was unlocked the entire time! I have never heard this before, and it seems quite improbable to me that one of the gang members who entered the bank would not have attempted a pull on the safe's handle just for the sport of it. Nevertheless, an expected haul of seventeen thousand dollars (a quarter million in today's terms) wound up being a twenty six dollar heist!
Minor discrepancies like that aside, this was a nice, quick capsule sized version of one of history's most notorious incidents. The story cites the 1972 movie "The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid" starring Cliff Robertson and Robert Duvall as one of cinema's better movie treatments, but for my money, I'd go with 1980's "The Long Riders".
