brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

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.

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

One of the hardest tests for an actor who is famous in other genres, like musicals is to make a western and come out well. So many tried and did not make it. Bobby Darin' performance in this film is quite an achievement. Darin himself was responsible for the musical soundtrack, which is excellent, specially the song "Amy". We have seen countless times the story of a man who goes to war and when he comes back sees his woman engaged to somebody else. Here we have the same story, but done with special care, due to the script and the fine acting of Emily Banks. The scenes where there is action are well made, you even see Darin kicking with his feet. He also wears his gun with the handle turned the other way around. The story is too predictable, but it has one uncommon element, which is the guilt feelings that dominate Darin making him behave in a strange way in relation to people that know him well. The director, William Hale was very well known for his work on television, and after the undeservedly bad reviews this film got, went back to it.

Though only 11 years had elapsed since the release of "Showdown at Abilene," Universal re-made this under the title "Gunfight in Abilene" with, surprisingly, Bobby Darin taking over the Jock Mahoney role. It's an unexpected casting which does not pay off since Darin seems out of place in a western and he's simply too small and modest to be the kind of tough lawman who could "clean up" a frontier town. In some scenes, he looks even shorter than leading lady, Emily Banks, and whereas Mahoney appeared on the balcony of the Abilene hotel gloriously bare-chested -- showing off his impressive physique but wearing his pants high enough to hide his navel -- Darin plays this same scene with his shirt on though open a bit at the top. (When Darin wakes up from a nightmare in a brief and dimly-lit scene, however, he's bare-chested whereas Mahoney, in a comparable scene, wears an undershirt.) On the plus side, Darin did contribute a song, "Amy," which is sung under the opening credits and which, though undistinguished, is pleasant enough and which today -- due to a decline in movie-song-writing quality -- might win an Oscar.The triangular relationship among Jock Mahoney, Lyle Bettger, and Martha Hyer which strengthened the original movie is still of interest here but one can't quite believe that Bobby Darin and Leslie Nielsen had once been close friends.Though this re-make follows the original quite closely, there are two notable changes. This version begins with a Civil War battle sequence showing Bobby Darin accidentally shooting a friend. Thus the audience knows from the start why the guilt-stricken Darin is reluctant to carry a gun when he returns to Abilene and why he feels he owes a debt to the dead friend's brother. When Darin later confesses the truth to Nielsen, his remarks lack the impact they had in the original version when the audience did NOT know what had happened back in the Civil War battle.The other change is also questionable. In the new version there's a young blonde woman in Abilene who has a crush on Darin and who pops up in a few scenes. This character does not appear in the original version and she adds nothing to the story.The re-make is superior to the original in two respects, however. Donnelly Rhodes makes a much more convincing "bad guy" than Ted de Corsia, and Michael Sarrazin's whipping is more effectively staged than Grant Williams' whipping in the 1956 version. Sarrazin is stripped of his shirt and subjected to more punishment and taunts than Williams who, for some inexplicable reason, is allowed to keep his shirt on while being flogged, even though he has a pleasing physique -- as was proved in "The Incredible Shrinking Man" -- and even though Universal had begun to groom him for his "hunk" appeal.Finally, all the character names from the 1956 version have been changed for the 1967 one.