The movie opens with a young black girl finding a muddy doll in a cultivated path that her grandfather just furrowed in a family garden. When the grandfather relates that it might have belonged once to a legend named Belle Starr, he's asked to explain what a legend is. He states that it's 'the prettiest part of the truth'.Unfortunately, the movie never even gets to any part of the truth regarding the life of Belle Starr, pretty or otherwise. The title of the film is apparently taken from a Richard K. Fox novel of the same name, a writer and publisher of the National Police Gazette, so right there one's sources are questionable. At least the principal players had credibility in other pictures, in this one they're doing the best they can under the circumstances. Gene Tierney in particular, portraying the title character, comes across as unusually sarcastic and whiny. That may not have been her own fault as the director obviously had some input into the role, but it had a negative effect on this viewer.Utilizing piecemeal aspects of American Civil War history, the film introduced elements from the real life of Belle Starr, but that's about it. In reality Sam Starr was a Cherokee Indian and was actually Belle's second husband; they lived in Indian Territory and were eventually arrested by Bass Reeves for horse theft in 1883. Both served time, and oddly, Belle was a model prisoner for the nine months she served at the Detroit House of Corrections.The picture did get a few things right; Belle Starr did ride sidesaddle and did marry Sam Starr (Randolph Scott). Two characters introduced in the story as the Cole Brothers (Joe Sawyer and Joe Downing) were obviously based on two members of the James-Younger Gang, brothers John and Jim Younger. That was established when it was mentioned they once rode with Quantrill's Raiders during the Civil War. The death of Belle Starr is also dealt with accurately, she was killed in an ambush in 1889, though her murder remains unsolved with various theories offered.There are a handful of TV and movie Western treatments of Belle Starr, but the only other one I've seen is an episode from 1954's "Stories of the Century", it was actually the premier episode. That one presented Belle as a horse thief and all around bad girl, while Sam was a shiftless drinker and gambler, a lot closer to the truth than this movie suggests. In that story, Belle Starr is portrayed by Marie Windsor in a better considered casting decision.

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.

Although the true story of Belle Starr is fictionalized, the history of Yankee abuse in post-Civel War history is right on target. Missouri was NOT a Confederate state but they were still cursed with uppity and self serving Yankee officers, carpetbaggers, and other scum whose actions would assure the unofficial Civil War would continue to flow blood well into 1882 and beyond.Belle Starr begins by making the point of how Yankee actions impoverished the black population, as the legend of Miss Belle is told by an aged black man, trying to eek a living out of the ruins of Belle's burnt plantation, told to his granddaughter.When Belle is found to have helped a wounded Southerner, Union hothead (Dana Andrews is stuck with this role) takes out her sexual rejection of him by burning her home to the ground. Belle soon vows to spill Yankee blood for the remainder of her life, and with he aid of Sam Starr (Randolph Scott) she does just that.Gene Tierney was said by Daryll F Zanuck to be the most beautiful woman to ever appear in the movies, and who would disagree. Filmed in the glorious and now long-gone 3 strip Technicolor, Miss Tierney as well as the countryside are just gorgeous.Incidentally, Technicolor cameras of this era weighted hundreds of pounds and were half the size of an automobile; thus we're spared the hyper and jump-around camera work that are the curse of 2000 to 2010's awful movies.Hollywood today is completely confused as to what to do about showing black people in movies about the 19th century. By PC standards, slaves, if any, must be like those in Spielberg's false Amasted. Filmmakers in the early 1940's had no idea they were supposed to comply with the empty-headed prejudices of 2010. Courage is not Hollywood's strong point, so Belle Starr is supposedly confined to the Fox vault -- but you can find it if you try hard enough.

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation undoubtedly produced their chick flick western "Belle Starr" to cash in on their success with their earlier outlaw biography "Jesse James" with Tyrone Power. Moreover, this biographical oater appropriates the post-Civil War South as its setting and uses both the 'Lost Cause' sentiments of old die-hard rebels and the evils of Reconstruction in the Missouri to shape its protagonist. Indeed, Fox appears to have cast the beautiful Gene Tierney as the eponymous heroine in her fourth role based on her striking resemblance to "Gone with the Wind" beauty Vivian Leigh. "Cisco Kid" director Irving Cummings and "Drums Along the Mohawk" scenarist Lamar Trotti play fast and loose with the truth about the title character. They use African-Americans as storytellers to frame their story. In fact, the film unfolds largely in flashback when a young black girl discovers a doll in the ruins of the Shirley Plantation. Her father declares that it must have belonged to Belle Shirley and the story picks up after the Civil War. Later, "Belle Starr" concludes with Belle's death and three African-Americans describe Belle as if she were a mythic supernatural entity that can shape-shift in to a red fox. Not surprisingly, "Belle Starr" concerns the legend rather than the life of this notorious dame outlaw. For example, she lived longer in real life than her cinematic counterpart, but she died in real life the way that she does in the movie version, getting shot from ambush by an assassin. Typically, Hollywood movies in conformity with the Production Code Administration had to punish film characters that strayed from the law by killing them at the end of the movie. In "Belle Starr," the heroine is riding hell-bent for leather to town to give herself up after she realizes the error of her way. Naturally, her death is pre-ordained.