It's Abilene, Kansas, the end of the cattle drive from Texas. (Cf., "Red River.") The town depends on the money the rough-hewn cowboys bring in. One side of Texas Street is all saloons; the other is all merchants or, as they're usually called, goods and mercantile shops. The town exists in a steady state, moderated at time by the town marshal, Scott, and the cowardly county sheriff, Buchanan. One day a flood of homesteaders plods through and takes up residence on farm lands just outside. They fence off the land and the cattlemen don't like it. (Cf., "Shane".) The head cattleman hires a gunfighter. (Loc. cit.) Conflict ensues. The farmers win and the cattlemen are tamed. Scott marries the right girl (Dvorak).Edgar Buchanan, when we first see him, muses about "going back to dentistry." Before films, Buchanan was a dentist like his father. He was a graduate of what is now Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry. He moved his practice to California before entering films.The moral calculus is confusing. I was never very good at calculus to begin with but I could usually come up with a decent gestalt. Not here. Let me see. The cattlemen discover their trail is fenced off by farmers, so they destroy the fence and several homesteaders. Everyone in town anticipates their coming to wreck the store that sold the barbed wire to the farmers. And, as expected, a horde of cowpunchers rides portentously into town. Do they attack the barbed wire store? No. They bust into the closed saloons. Dvorak owns one of the saloons. Why doesn't she try to stop the chaos? A young, headstrong farmer, Lloyd Bridges, leads the homesteaders onto the land and fences it in, claiming it's government land, we have a right to fence it off. If the government land is free, don't the cattlemen have a right to use the land, pari passu? Why are the farmers treated as the "good guys" when they could have avoided conflict by leaving an open path through their many acres for the drovers to use? They might have charged a small fee.Scott is his usual taciturn self, but he smiles tolerantly more often. Buchanan is sometimes amusing. He loves to win card games, so when he runs into a redneck farmer he's eager to teach him how to play. When the hands are dealt, the tyro asks, "What did you say was higher -- a King or a Queen?" Buchanan leans over and examines the other guy's cards. "Mmmm. Let's deal another hand." It wouldn't have been funny if Buchanan had simply lied.Dvorak is pretty in an unusual way. She has a great smile and her eyes are startling. And she did a memorable hootch-kootchie in "Scarface." Here she sings too much as a dance hall girl. And her name -- I never know how to pronounced it. Is it pronounced as it's spelled? Or is it pronounced "Dvor-zhak" like the Czech composer's? And what the hell was the matter with her real name, Anna McKim? Somebody's pulling the wool over somebody's eyes around here.It occurred to me while watching this that three of the community forces involved here correspond rather neatly to three of the American regions described in Colin Woodard's book, "American Nation." The homesteaders are Woodard's "Yankees" who migrate as a cohesive community full of ambition. The rowdy cowboys are Woodard's "Appalachians" who reject regulations and believe a man is responsible for his own actions. Scott is a "Borderlander," like a Philadelphian, who is tolerant and peaceful and egalitarian. There have been reviews claiming that this is some kind of hidden gem, a secret cinematic triumph, but it really isn't. It's a decent Western. Randolph Scott never offends. I kind of enjoyed it.

Five years after the end of the Civil War the town of Abilene, Kansas serves as the end of the trail for the cattle drives from Texas and is dependent upon them for their economic well-being. However, times are changing and farmers are moving in from the East to start new lives in this area. Randolph Scott, as the town marshal named "Dan Mitchell" realizes that the cattlemen and the farmers cannot mutually coexist and trouble is about to start. He also has another problem (which most men would envy) which is that two beautiful women are in love with him. The first is a saloon dancer by the name of "Rita" (Ann Dvorek) and the other is the daughter of one of the town merchants named "Sherry Balder" (Rhonda Fleming). Neither wants him to risk his life by getting involved in the violence that is likely to occur. At any rate, rather than divulging what happens next I will just say that this is a fairly good western which manages to entertain for the most part. Now, normally I don't mind a film in black and white, but there was a reason Rhonda Fleming was nicknamed "the Queen of Cinemascope" and although she still looked great, black and white just doesn't do her any justice. But that's just my opinion.

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

In the expansive history of film Westerns, the theme of cattle men against homesteaders has been done countless times, and "Abilene Town" turns out to be one of the better explorations of that subject. Interestingly, it also throws in a third element, that of the general merchandise shop keeper who stands to benefit from making the right choice between the two. Straddling atop that shaky fence is town marshal Dan Mitchell (Randolph Scott), who has the vision to understand that what happens in Abilene, Kansas will have an impact across all the western territories sooner or later. The story takes place in 1870, and most of the action occurs along Texas Street, where the best bar in town is called 'The Best Bar in Town', right alongside 'Joe's Texas Bar" and the simply named 'Saloon'. A trail hand wonders what kind of town Abilene is with no bars on the other side of the street. When homesteaders begin to make their presence in town felt, Mitchell must perform a delicate balancing act between the opposing forces, and between two lovely young women. Ann Dvorak is saloon singer Rita, who literally keeps Mitchell hopping with precision kicks in the shin. Sherry Balder (Rhonda Fleming) is the daughter of the main shop keeper in town, who pines for Mitchell, until homesteader Henry Dreiser (Lloyd Bridges) wins her over with an appeal to her sense of family values and homesteader principles of working hard and building a life. Rounding out the main cast is Edgar Buchanan, a perennial favorite as County Marshal Bravo Trimble. Bravo has a unique nose for danger, and a compass that always points him in the opposite direction. He also has a penchant for a card game called 'fantan' which he would rather play than do anything else, and Big Annie (Helen Boyce) is always willing to oblige.The film has it's fair share of saloon fights and gun play, though it gets a little disjointed during the cattle stampede that Cap Ryker's (Dick Curtis) men initiate to take down the barb wire barrier put up on the range land. Banding together, the homesteaders find the resolve they need to stand up to the raucous cattle drovers. In an ironic twist, Sheriff Mitchell allows the carousing bad boys to tear the saloons apart. His 'way a rough street dies' speech near the end of the story is a fitting capstone to a turn of events that heralds the advance of civilization to a wild frontier. While in the background, shop keeper Balder does the math.With Randolph Scott in the starring role, I should have thought to count the number of outfit changes he'll go through before he tames Abilene. It's a signature mark of his Western films, and he doesn't disappoint here, though for my money, I prefer him in all black. With the town cleaned up and ready to move forward, the men and ladies pair off neatly, Mitchell and saloon girl Rita, Dreiser with Sherry Balder, and would be mayor Bravo with Big Annie. Somehow I got the feeling that they all had a different definition of 'fantan' on their minds.