MovieChat Forums > The Jayhawkers! (1959) Discussion > Good Movie but a Question about the Rela...

Good Movie but a Question about the Relationship


I get that Darcy either seduced or otherwise took up with Bleeker's wife while Bleeker was in Prison. Did not seem to regret this as he told Bleeker in his speech at the hideout to "taker her down from the pedestal he had placed her on" making it appear that she was not worthy of Bleeker's adoration and Love.

In the saloon in Abeline before the climactic fight, Darcy calls Bleeker a friend, something and then rather emotionally "BROTHER".
Which leads ot my question: Were Bleeker and Darcy actual Brothers or was Darcy speaking more in rhetorical terms of Bleeker as a "Brother in Arms" against the Military Governor?
If you have watched the movie I would appreciate your thoughts.

For one dollar, I'll guess your weight, your height, or your sex.

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the bleaker and darcy characters were not literal brothers.

nor were they friends though the did each admire the other.

you might want to note that chandler died at 42 and parker at 85.

and to my knowledge, there is nothing historical about the story other than it took place during the civil war.

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They were neither brothers nor related in any other way. They also hadn't known each other prior to Bleeker being sent by the governor to track down D'Arcy.

Perhaps it would have been a better movie if they had been brothers, close friends, or associated in some other way before the incidents in the movie took place. I found it hard to believe these two men, complete strangers, would form such a close bond so quickly; especially given their history.

Bleeker was so obsessed with his wife he broke out of jail risking his life and freedom to find out what happened to her after she stopped writing. When he arrives he finds out she's dead and learns D'Arcy played a role in her demise. Even if D'Arcy's take on events were true; that Bleeker's wife was lonely and had chosen to be with him, it's doubtful Bleeker would be over it. D'Arcy never hid the fact he used women then tossed them aside.

Even if he believed she was lonely, flawed, and found another man to share her life and bed if he cared anything about her; as he supposedly did, he would have felt her pain when the man she turned to and loved basically dumped her like yesterday's trash. Even though Bleeker had, in a sense, left her as well, it was under a completely different set of circumstances.

Also, while he and D'Arcy may have been fighting against a similar cause, the government who was trying to get them to chose sides, D'Arcy was harming the innocent people of the state.

At the end of the movie both Bleeker and Jeanne feel a closeness to D'Arcy that makes absolutely no sense. They don't want him to hang but they don't really want him saved either. This is a terrible movie that seems to be all over the place. I'm not saying there aren't people like this in the world but I don't think that's what the movie makers were intentionally trying to portray. I think they just did a horrible job.


Woman, man! That's the way it should be Tarzan. [Tarzan and his mate]

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Luke Darcy (Jeff Chandler) knew that Fess Parker was a raider along the Kansas/ Missouri Border and was very good at it. He considered him a brother in arms against the Government. He considered Parker's wife and most people ( especially women) to be beneath him ( Nicole Maurey excluded).

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