The Jayhawkers!

The Jayhawkers!
Original theatrical poster
Directed by	Melvin Frank
Produced by	Melvin Frank Norman Panama
Written by	A. I. Bezzerides Frank Fenton Melvin Frank
Based on	story by Frank Fenton Joe Petracca
Starring	Jeff Chandler Fess Parker
Music by	Jerome Moross
Cinematography	Loyal Griggs
Edited by	Everett Douglas
Production company	Parwood Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	15 October 1959
Running time	100 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$1 million (est. US/ Canada rentals)

The Jayhawkers! (1959) is an American Technicolor VistaVision movie set in pre-Civil War Kansas, starring Jeff Chandler and Fess Parker, and directed by Melvin Frank. Parker joins Chandler's gang, which seeks to take advantage of Bleeding Kansas. The Jeff Chandler character was loosely based on John Brown. The supporting cast features Henry Silva and Leo Gordon.

The film was made by the team of Norman Panama and Melvin Frank who had a deal with Paramount. They bought the story in January 1957. Panama and Frank were best known for their comedies and had made a comic Western, Callaway Went Thataway but The Jayhawkers was serious. Frank said at the time:

The world has change in eight years. This is no time to satirize western myth; people won't stand for the making fun of something sacred. Actually, why The Jayhawkers is in the outdoor category and has outlaws and guns and horses, it's a western only in that it takes place on the then-frontier of 1859. Something frightening happened in Kansas on the eve of the Civil War... A man on horseback tried to become A Man on Horseback. He took over only a few towns- but what would've happened if he'd seized Kansas for his empire and the Civil War had allowed him to set up a kingdom in the West? The power mad character has always threatened freedom. We had long wanted to use this theme in a story about the American past and when we found this story... it clicked.

Panama and Frank subjected the script to analysis by a psychological consulting firm.

Melvin Frank tried to interest Vivien Leigh in the female lead. Chandler made the film on loan out from Universal International. Filming started 1 December 1958