Abilene Town (1946)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

In the years following the Civil War, the town of Abilene, Kansas is poised on the brink of an explosive confrontation. A line has been drawn down the center of the town where the homesteaders and the cattlemen have come to a very uneasy truce. The delicate peace is inadvertently shattered when a group of new homesteaders lay down their stakes on the cattlemen's side of town.They upset the delicate balance that had existed thus far and spark an all-out war between the farmers, who want the land tamed and property lines drawn, and the cowboys, who want the prairies to be open for their cattle to roam.Watchable despite the poor print and that Lloyd bridges was better under the water than on a horse.

Don't let the fact that this is a post-World War II, black & white, public domain western dissuade you from watching it. The Randolph Scott oater "Abilene Town" exemplifies what makes a great western and great filmmaking. Scott is capably cast as a strong, level-headed lawman of the eponymous cattle town in 1870. Predictably, the cattlemen are a rambunctious, trigger-happy, liquor-swilling horde that they dictate their demands to the merchants. Although our stalwart town marshal is sworn to uphold the law, the obsequious townspeople--who depend on the trail drovers for their livelihood--don't want Sheriff Dan Mitchell to enforce the law in such a way that the cattlemen would drive their herds to other towns. Change, it seems, is rarely a good thing initially, and the arrival of Lloyd Bridges and a crowd of homesteaders from Ohio sparks conflict between not only the cattlemen and the homesteaders but also the merchants and the homesteaders. "Ride'em Cowboy" scenarist Harold Shumate adapted Ernest Haycox's novel "Trail Town" for the screen, and the characters are as interesting as they are charismatic. The brilliance of this western is that we get to see the townspeople behave for a change as if they have minds as well as spines, and they don't cower for long after Scott mobilizes them into action. The impetus for the merchants to side with the homesteaders comes when the chief storekeeper's daughter falls in love with the leader of the homesteaders. "Abilene Town" is one of the few American westerns that contains a scene where our lawman hero has a shoot-out in the saloon and shoots his adversity in the same frame in which he appears. In other words, we see the hero shoot a villain in the same visual shot. Typically, old fashioned Hollywood westerns refrained from having anybody shoot another somebody in the same visual frame. Furthermore, "Abilene Town" differs also because the hero doesn't stick with the sweet, innocent young thing that he starts out romancing but ties up with a cantankerous saloon girl who has a passion for kicking our hero in the shins. "Tall in the Saddle" director Edwin L. Marin makes sure that this 89 minute horse opera doesn't wear out its welcome. He is adroit at swirling humor into this largely straightforward tale about good citizenship. Jack Lambert makes a first-rate murderous villain. Edgar Buchanan steals the show as a craven County Sheriff 'Bravo' Trimble.

Scott plays a marshal in a town thats being over ran by both farmers and cattlemen. The farmers wanna settle down and build a life and the Cattle ranchers just wanna use the land for their cows to roam on. The town becomes one big feud and the marshal is right in the middle trying to keep peace, even though most wanna leave it alone, including county officials.I am a huge fan of spaghetti westerns and even some of John Fords work, but these older American westerns with their happy go lucky good guy heroes have never been my thing.It's pretty basic and the acting is okay, I liked some of the bad guys best. Lloyd Bridges is always good and it was nice to see him in an older movie. The actresses in these old movies are so dramatic and are so difficult to watch. This movie had a bit of a comedy side and that made it more appealing.This movie had some laughs, some good fist fights and good actors (except the women), but it couldn't please me in the slightest. I would suggest it to people who like older westerns, but no one else. 1/10

A righteous sheriff finds himself in the pinch when there is hostility against homesteaders. He urges his fellow villagers to choose sides and to help him end the conflict.Decent old-school western. Every cliché is there: from the fierce shootouts to the merry can-can dancers; from the stubborn but righteous sheriff to the crooks stirring up things in town. It's not as harsh as we're used to since Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinah and the boundary between right and wrong is pretty clear from the start. But I liked it as a fan of the western. It's not a classic in any way, but still a decent flick to see if you like the genre.