Abilene Town (1946)

After watching a couple of his 1930s films, I can confirm that Randolph Scott is much more "recognizable" as his more mature self in this 1940s film.

I like the way everything in this story is split in two: Farmers vs. Cowboys is the main division, but the town is also divided. On one side, it's the church and businesses (civilization) on one side of the street, and the saloons on the other side.

Dan (Scott) is the town marshal. This gives him the obligation to patrol both sides. He also has a counterpart: Sheriff Trimble (Edgar Buchanan), representing the law for the county. Dan takes his job seriously. The Sheriff would rather play cards and stay out of trouble.

We have the two love interests: Sherry (Rhoda Fleming) on the church side, and Rita (Ann Dvorak) on the saloon side. Dan likes both of them, and they both like him. But Dan has a little more "saloon side" in him. He wants to represent the good guys, but he's willing to use his gun. He's also willing to steal a willing kiss from Rita, telling her that she better give up a little of the goods before her goods turn sour. Interesting line.

He likes a woman like Rita. A woman that's not afraid to show a little leg. At the same time, it's clear that if she's his woman, she will need to change and start wearing an apron -- and be the good wife and mother type. In other words, what makes her attractive is what she will need to stop being (at least for the paying public) -- she will need to tame herself and stop being a chorus girl.

In the end, the town decides which "side of the street" it wants to be. Before the town fully decides it's in its best interest to back one side or the other, Dan watches as the cowboys destroys the saloons, making the quip that they're doing too good a job at it to stop them. Might as well like the bad guys destroy the bad side of town. Just makes it easier for the good guys...

Fortunately for Sherry, Henry (Lloyd Bridges) is there to step in after Dan decides that Rita is more his kind of woman. But Sherry hits a cowboy over the head with the butt of a gun, and that does get Dan's attention and admiration for a moment -- a real turn on for Dan to watch her butt the guy -- but since he has Rita, he's happy to "gift" Sherry to Henry, and everyone will apparently live happily ever after as the cowboys leave town with their tails between their legs, never to return.

Ann Dvorak is new to me. I looked her up and discovered that she had a contract dispute with Warner Brothers. She ultimately won, but that dispute hurt her career. Rita seemed to be a good role for her, but at this point in her career, Dvorak was a lot closer to the end of her career than the beginning.

I also hate checking Wikipedia biographies, because I feel like a fortune teller in some respects. Here's a woman in 1946 during this pretty good part in a movie. But little did she know that she would die of stomach cancer in 1979. Everyone dies, of course, and likely every single person in this movie is long dead but finding out when and how they died is still sad to read about.

Rating: 3/5 stars

"Digging for the Truth" Experiment #4 -- The Federalist Radio Hour

I first heard of Sean Davis last week. He created an online magazine called The Federalist in 2011, and he currently has about 500,000 followers on X. It was about last week that he posted something amazing. He suggested if the Supreme Court doesn't rule the way they should, not only should Trump just ignore the ruling, if they keep obstructing the administration, he should just dissolve the Court altogether. And I thought, wow. This guy is saying outrageous stuff like that, and there's an audience for it. So, I decided I'd listen to an episode of The Federalist podcast: April 17, 2025 -- Deportation, Due Process, and Deference to the American People (40 minutes) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deportation-due-process-and-deference-to-the/id983782306?i=1000703904873 In the 40-minute conversation, the host and guest discussed why due process wasn't required for illegal immigrants. The case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was mentioned for a brief second, but...

In Utero

In 1994, I wore my In Utero shirt to college. I’d walk down the hall, and people would look at the shirt. I still remember a professor looking at it, not apparently hip to the scene. She asked, “Bret, is there something you’re trying to tell us?” I had no idea what I was trying to say. Kurt Cobain had just shot his head off with a shotgun. Before that life-changing event, I hadn’t been the biggest fan of Nirvana, but I did recognize the immediate impact “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had on music, or at least on MTV. Nirvana had seemingly killed and buried Hair Metal, and they had done it single-handedly. What exactly was this “Alternative” sound? It was weird, because soon it felt like everything was “alternative,” and that didn’t make any sense. Once everything is the same, how can it be anything but standard, normal? Nirvana was okay, but at least at the time I was wearing the merch, I was much more into Offspring and Green Day and Tool. And that’s about as far as I went into...

I Must Betray You -- Ruta Sepetys

I appreciate the pacing. The author's epilogue includes her mission statement -- historical fiction as a way to keep history alive. Romanis is an obscure place, but she hopes people reading the book will take an interest in its history. She also makes the point that there are no clean endings. So, the evil dictator and his wife were killed, but the problems they created didn't magically go away, the country still had to find its way and move forward, and it was a process.

The Writer's Poke

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