Gunfight in Abilene ** (1967, Bobby Darin, Emily Banks, Leslie Nielsen, Don Galloway, Michael Sarrazin) – Classic Movie Review 9695

The 1967 Western film Gunfight in Abilene stars Bobby Darin in a non-singing role as brave Rebel soldier Cal Wayne, and features Michael Sarrazin in his film début as a guileless tenderfoot. 

Director William Hale’s 1967 Western film Gunfight in Abilene stars Bobby Darin in a non-singing role as brave Rebel soldier Cal Wayne, who has accidentally killed his long-time best friend fellow Confederate soldier during the American Civil War.

When Cal comes home to Abilene, Kansas, after the Civil War, he discovers his sweetheart, Amy Martin (Emily Banks), who thought he was dead, is about to marry cattle baron Grant Evers (Leslie Nielsen), the brother of the soldier Wayne killed.

On Evers’s request, he replaces the town’s corrupt sheriff, but he has lost his bottle, won’t wear a gun and wants everyone to surrender their weapons. He is scared of the bad guys whipping up a feud between cattlemen and farmers, a situation that then erupts.

Gunfight in Abilene is attentively made, acceptably standard Sixties B-movie Western stuff, with a neat plot, good characters and a decent cast. But amiable singer Darin is below par as a Western hero in a yarn based on the short story Gun Shy by Clarence Upson Young, previously filmed as 1956’s Showdown at Abilene (with Jock Mahoney, Martha Hyer and Lyle Bettger).

Jacques Michel André Sarrazin.

It marks the cinema feature film début of Michael Sarrazin, as guileless tenderfoot Cord Decker.

Also in the cast are Emily Banks, Leslie Nielsen, Donnelly Rhodes, Don Galloway, Michael Sarrazin, Barbara Werle, Frank McGrath, Johnny Seven, William Phipps, William Mims, Robert Sorrells (as Nelson), James McCallion, Bryan O’Byrne and Don Dubbins.

Gunfight in Abilene is directed by William Hale, runs 86 minutes, is made and released by Universal Pictures, is written by Berne Giler and John D F Black, based on the short story Gun Shy by Clarence Upson Young, is shot in Techniscope and Technicolor by Maury Gertsman, is produced by Howard Christie and is scored by Bobby Darin.

The battle scene at the start of the film and the prison scene near the riverboat are footage from the 1965 James Stewart movie, Shenandoah.

Despite suffering a bad time in the movie, being flogged shirtless in one scene, Michael Sarrazin returned for more Westerns: A Man Called Gannon (1968) and Journey to Shiloh (1968).

Robert Sorrells in The Wonderful World of Disney.

Veteran character actor Robert Sorrells became belligerent while drinking in a bar called The Regency Lounge in Simi Valley, California, on 24 July 2004. After patron Arthur DeLong forcibly escorted him from the bar, Sorrells went home, got his pistol, returned to the bar and he shot dead DeLong in the back at point-blank range. Sorrells also shot bystander Edward Sanchez.

In July 2005 he was sentenced to 32 years to life for premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder. He died in prison on 11 June 2019, aged 88, while serving the sentence.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9695

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