Regular Price $5.98

Starring: Randolph Scott,  Ann Dvorak,  Edgar Buchanan,  Rhonda Fleming,  Lloyd Bridges, 
Directed By: Edwin L. Marin, 
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Release Date: 1946-01-11
Studio: St Clair Vision
Format: Black & White,  DVD-Video,  NTSC, 

Editorial Reviews and DVD Information about Abilene Town

Amazon.com
Stiff-as-a-board town marshal Randolph Scott, with his laconic drawl and smiling as if at some personal joke, is the moral authority of an end-of-the-trail frontier town in this surprisingly intriguing 1946 Western. The community is literally split down the middle--shops and churches line one side of main street, saloons and taverns the other--and Abilene's citizens tolerate the rowdy, rough-and-tumble antics of trail hands and rambunctious cowboys as long as they remain on their side of the street. Lloyd Bridges plays the leader of a flock of newly arrived settlers who inadvertently tip the uneasy balance when they string up the open range and draw the fire of the cattlemen, who bring their reign of terror into the town. Edwin L. Marin's professional (if pedestrian) direction keeps the film plugging along, but the smart script, an ingeniously mercenary climactic battle plan, and a defiantly righteous performance from Bridges give the film bite. Hellfire in heels dance-hall girl Ann Dvorak's love-hate relationship with Scott provides comic sparks and a potent challenge to his chaste courting of shop girl Rhonda Fleming. Edgar Buchanan is suitably dry as a cowardly, card-playing county sheriff who knows the value of a voting constituency. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews for Abilene Town

Tight and punchy B Western
This brisk and lively western is based on Ernest Haycock's fine novel "Trail Town" and is essentially a scaled down version of the classic 1939 Western "Dodge City",having a script built along similar lines .
It is a town taming tale in which Randolph Scott plays a tough lawman ,charged with the task of restoring order to Abilene,a cattle town at the end of the Chisholm Trail .Abilene is riven with conflict between cattlemen and homesteaders and Scott needs to tackle the corruption endemic within certain sections of the cattle interest while striving to ensure that the hotheaded and fiery leader of the homesteaders( Lloyd Bridges)does not inflame the situation so badly that widespread violence is inevitable .and that saner counsels previal .He still finds time for amorous dalliance with two opposite women -the "nice,respectable"girl (Rhonda Fleming)and the wisecracking saloon gal (Ann Dvorak).The latter character has echoes of Dietrich in Destry Rides Again

This was the first of several movies pairing Scott and director Edward L Marin ,a partnership ended by the death of the director in 1951 .It is a tough ,fast moving and unpretentious movie with decent performances - I especilaly liked the droll cameo from Edgar Buchanan aa a lawmam who would rather booze than fight -and a tight script by Harold Shumale ,allied to punchy direction keeps things moving briskly throughout

This is a robust unpretentious movie that will be admired by Western fans particularlyAbilene Town

Abilene Town
If you like westerns and especially if you like Randolf Scott you will enjoy Abilene Town. Being in B&W makes it like a documnetary on the growth of our nation. Yet this movie does have action and lessons to be learned without all of the blood and guts that the current movies like to show; and yes it does have a happy ending. This is a movie you can watch with your kids to give them an opportunity to see how the west was won.Abilene Town

The tame always win
Smart and briskly told, ABILENE TOWN is an above-average homesteader vs. cattle rancher movie. Randolph Scott stars as the town marshal of Abilene who finds himself in the middle of a land war. Short of only John Wayne, Scott is the man for the task. The movie opens with Scott in church, singing hymns with the angelic Rhonda Fleming. The pious music is interrupted by the sound of gunfire. The cattle drovers are in town, shooting up the honey pots.
Check that - they're shooting up-wards in the saloons, more in emphatic syncopation with song and dance girl Ann Dvorak's act that in meanness. The wranglers and ramrods are saving that meanness for act two, when the hymn singing, sodbusting homesteaders arrive and begin planting houses and barb-wiring up the northern terminus of the Abilene Trail. That levels out their aim some.
ABILENE TOWN is about the tension of opposites, with Randolph Scott smack in the middle. His character is a failed rancher who sympathizes with the "decent life" desiring homesteaders. He has to chose between Good Girl Rhonda Fleming and Bad Girl (with a heart of gold) Ann Dvorak. The movie also pits the merchants against the saloons, cattle against wheat, the pious against the profane. It's a contest between a restoration of the status quo and the establishment of a new order.
With its strong story, straight-ahead direction, and solid cast, ABILENE TOWN is a treat. Scott is well within his competent comfort zone as the man with the badge, Edgar Buchanan and Ann Dvorak leaven things with amusing diversions, and a young Lloyd Bridge is effective as the firebrand leader of the sodbusters. Hired thug Chet Younger, played by the underrated Jack Lambert, burns enough barns and shoots enough defenseless women and children to keep our sympathies from straying over to the wrong side of the fence. The transfer print on the review copy was faded out some, which tends to flatten out the picture. Nothing major. Otherwise it's in good shape, a real bargain considering its deeply discounted price.
ABILENE TOWN is a classic western that will delight fans of the genre and quite possibly hold the attention of non-converts as well.
Abilene Town

From cattle chaos to homesteading order
This film is interesting because it shows how a city that was built and that prospered thanks to the driving of cattle from the SouthWest to the Middle West becomes a farming town. The fight between the drovers and the homesteaders is very well depicted, with its killings when the drovers deem it necessary to impose their domination. But the city is cut in two. On one side of the street the saloons. On the other side of the street the shops. The change comes when the homesteaders cut the trail with their barbed wire and when the shopkeepers understand that there is more money on the homesteaders' side than on the drovers'. The drovers push their last pawns, with the support at first of the saloonkeepers. But it means killing some homesteaders and the local marshall opposes it and imposes law and order. The drovers are driven out of the city. The city becomes a farming city and Kansas moves from a state that is crossed by herds of cattle to a farming state. This is possible, though never really said, because the railroads make it feasible to transport the cattle from Texas to Illinois without having to cross any farmland any more. But this future is made a reality because of the alliance of the shopkeepers with the homesteaders. We thus are shown history in its making.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAUAbilene Town

Cattlemen vs homesteaders vs law
In this opus,town marshall(Randolph Scott)his his hands full keeping trail hands,at the end of a drive from treeing his town. Added to this is an enept sheriff(Edgar Bucannan),a hot headed farmer (Lloyd Bridges)and the town's saloon keepers -who will do anything to make a fast buckAbilene Town