Gunfight in Abilene

Trailer—Gunfight in Abilene

I found that the entire picture would have been quite slap stick without Emily Banks. It was she that kept the viewer from falling asleep. The script was horrible! The outcome of the movie was as predictable as the over and over riding the horsey scenes.

Although this is routine faire, it is interesting to watch Darin and Neilson in a western with an early performance by Michael Sarrazin. The title song "Amy" is nifty, worked into the background music nicely and doesn't wear out it's welcome, as in the case of so many other westerns. The plot is routine, but the action moves the story along to it's predictable conclusion nicely, giving us a good watch.

This is one of those movies that come in handy when you can't sleep at night. Watching Bobby Darrin attempt to play a tough ex- Sheriff, is simply to hard to believe. His hair remains perfectly groomed for the entire movie. The outfits are for the most part, wrong for the period in which the film takes place. For me, the background music upstaged all the stars who performed in this boring film.

Cal Wayne (Bobby Darin) returns home from the Civil War a broken man, haunted and afraid to strap on a gun because he had mistakenly killed his friend. Upon return, he finds that his dead friend's brother, Grant Evers (Leslie Nielsen) has taken over the town with the help of a bullying sheriff, and is engaged to marry the woman Cal loves. With a supporting role by Michael Sarrazin in his big screen debut as a kind-hearted rancher who is flogged by the evil sheriff while returning a stray calf, and eventually dies from the beating (triggering the violent series of confrontations that ends the movie). The plot of this movie, while following a tried and true formula, does introduce some interesting twists and turns. However, Bobby Darin was a poor fit for the role. One inescapably concludes that Universal was trying him out in the western lead role, and he obviously failed as it was his only western. Darin's acting seemed forced, his scrawny frame swaggering around with an exaggerated chest-out, shoulders-back posture. His fight scenes with larger men were so forced and obviously scripted that they come off as feeble. His acting was a series of attempts to over-emphasize every word with uncomfortable pregnant pauses while we study his face in close-up. It's all rather bizarre. Even more bizarrely, he wears black leather gloves throughout the entire movie, and appears uncomfortable doing so, constantly tugging at them. Perhaps they were hiding small hands. Who knows, but they stuck out like a sore thumb (no pun intended). He clearly did not belong in this role. Watching him in this movie felt more like watching a low-grade soap opera. But along comes Leslie Nielsen with another brilliant performance to save the day (barely). Leslie's acting, as always, is smooth and professional and realistic. He plays someone who sits atop an empire with an evil sheriff supporting his power play, emanating barely perceptible evilness. But he also plays a good guy who helps Darin's return to his hometown by giving him back his old job as sheriff, and he doesn't try to force himself on Darin's former girlfriend even though he is engaged to marry her. At one point he even offers to postpone the wedding because he knows he doesn't have her heart. This is one of the interesting plot twists, that Nielsen's character generously offers to give up the girl because he knows she is really in love with Darin's character. But even Nielsen's film-saving performance and Michael Sarrazin's supporting and sympathetic role in his first appearance on the big screen aren't enough to salvage Bobby Darin's attempt at a leading western man. At times he appears to be trying to emulate Dean Martin in appearance and manner, but fails miserably. Barely made a 6-star rating in my book, and only because of Nielsen and Sarrazin.

Bobby Darin looks so goofy in this movie that seeing Leslie Nielsen as a grim and malevolent land baron makes this movie even funnier. Bobby Darin has a nice personality, but he looks 100% ethnic New Yorker, and I doubt he could ride a horse. This is not a bad movie, except that it does not make any sense. It is just the kind of movie that was put together and nobody bothered to check if the plot made any sense, or if the dialogue made any sense. Just a passable B movie. The horrible song, Amy, makes it even worse. The movie was all about Bobby Darin and his guilt over killing Nielsen's brother. The song is about Amy, who plays second fiddle to the broken friendship between Darin and Nielsen. Just another part of the story that is awkward.

Bobby Darrin returns to Kansas after the Civil War. He finds his old friend, Leslie Nielson prospering, and about to marry Darrin's old girl. However, things are not well in the old home town, and at Darrin reluctantly becomes sheriff, but refuses to strap on guns. Meanwhille Nielson's henchman, Donnelly Rhodes, is killing farmers, threatening a war. It's an unambitious little movie, lent some size by using clips from SHENANDOAH. In an era when the influence of spaghetti westerns was dirtying up the once clean image of the B western, their influence is carefully limited to giving Nielson a wooden arm and a whipping scene.... something that was mandatory in old Alan Ladd movies. A minor effort in every way.

Are you kidding me - Bobby Darin - in a Western? I would have lost that bet big time. But you know what, he wasn't that bad. There were a few times I thought he was over-acting the role but in general a credible job. One problem though, was his casting as a baby face in the starring hero role. Like Audie Murphy, the matinée good looks don't always work when going up against the town bully or a gnarly gunslinger like Joe Slade (Donnelly Rhodes). Not only that, but when sized up against some of the other players, he was pretty much on the small side. But all in all, the story was pretty good. Now Leslie Nielsen - I guess I've seen him too many times in Airplane and Police Squad pictures to take him seriously in a dramatic role. So with that club hand of his, injured by Cal Wayne (Darin) when they were youngsters, it looked like a caricature and any minute I was expecting the kind of treatment we got from Kenneth Mars as the inspector in "Young Frankenstein". It came pretty close at one point too, when he started banging the hand on the back of a chair, but that was it. You have to admit though, Nielsen's character Grant Evers looked pretty fast on the draw for a cripple. It would have been something if the final showdown was between him and Cal. You know who got the short end of the stick here though, don't you? After all her fussing over Cal, Leann (Barbara Werle) got broomed so quickly she didn't even show up at the end of the picture. She could at least have gotten eighteen yellow roses for her trouble.

Gunfight in Abilene is directed by William Hale and adapted to screenplay by John Black and Bernie Giler from the story "Gun Shy" written by Clarence Upson Young. It stars Bobby Darin, Emily Banks, Leslie Nielsen and Don Galloway. Music is by Darin, with Joseph Gershenson overseeing things, and cinematography is by Maury Gertsman. Out of Universal Pictures it's a Technicolor/Techniscope production. Young's story had already made it to the big screen in 1956 as Showdown at Abilene, where Giler also adapted the screenplay and Howard Christie again produced. That Jock Mahoney starrer is a decent Oater, a safe story of formula with a solid lead performance, but certainly nothing to get excited about. But by comparison to the 1967 remake it's a masterpiece! Plot sees Darin's Confederate soldier accidentally kill a pal during the war and swears off guns forever. Upon the war's end he returns to Abilene, gets coerced into becoming the peaceable sheriff and has to clean up the town without using guns. Not easy since there is a war raging between the cattlemen and the farmers and he is pitched into the middle of it. Will he take up arms again? Will he find contented love in the arms of Amy Martin? (Banks) Will the accidental killing of his pal in the war surface in Abilene? Will you even care some hour and a half later? Answers on a postcard please. What few reviews of the film on line there is, sees it having a mixed reputation. The positive ones, you feel, have to come from Darin's adoring fans. But hey! I'm a fan of his music too, but watching him in this I kept thinking it would be so much better to hear him suddenly sing Mack the Knife instead. Same thing with Leslie Nielsen, who whilst desperately trying to make a go of playing a villain, just has one thinking of certain comedies down the line! Banks is pretty but pretty dull as an actress, the Technicolor is sub-standard (the Techniscope format exasperating this fact), and outdoor scenery is minimal since picture is 99% shot on the Universal sound stage. There's a good fist fight in the mix and the final show down is well staged and shot in off kilter angles. But this is poor and only really for Darin purists and very undemanding Western fans. Perhaps the last word should rest with Darin himself, who with a smirk on his face once quipped that the film was better titled as Gunfight at S**t Creek! 4/10

Awful movie. I am doing a real service here warning Western fans to avoid it. I liked the title, hadn't seen it before, and was very hopeful. But it is only for Bobby Darin fans. It is slow, boring and predictable. The action was few and boring. Darin had no stage presence for a Western hero. I can't think of anything positive to say about it. Mediocre everything: screenplay mainly, then acting and directing. Everything about the movie was small; no wonder the director mainly worked in TV. This dud of a movie went slow and fast at the same time. Most of it dragged along with the few characters, all uninteresting, and then at the end these scenes occur quickly: the big reveal to Nielsen, and the fate of Nielsen and ex-sheriff Joe Slade. It shows how bad the movie was when reviewers can only praise the song "Amy,' which was pleasant and passable.