GManfred No, it can't be. Randolph Scott in a dull western? I didn't believe it until I saw "Trail Street", a very talky talking picture with a good cast. Here, Scott is Bat Masterson who comes to Liberal, Kansas and becomes Marshal. He comes to the aid of newspaper editor Robert Ryan, one of Hollywood's better if underrated actors. Along for comic relief is old reliable Gabby Hayes, who never disappoints, and Anne Jeffreys as a glamorous dance hall girl.It takes forever for them to get around to the bad guys, spearheaded by Steve Brodie, who 'owns' Liberal, via his saloon. No new ground is broken and the story is the usual good guys vs bad guys, but the script must have been enormous due to the great amount of dialogue. "Trail Street" is for hardcore Randolph Scott fans, who is his usual stalwart self.

weezeralfalfa Yet another cattlemen-sodbuster war story. Of course, the rowdy trigger-happy cowboys and their town buddies are always the bad guys. Scott had just finished starring in a very similar tale in the 1946 "Abilene Town". Well, it does make a very reasonable and inflammatory plot. In this one, we have moved far to the southwest of Abilene, to the small frontier town of Liberal, KS, which is very near the (now) Oklahoma border.Scott plays the historical Bat Masterson, who was actually involved as a lawman in the not too distant town of Dodge City and surrounding Ford County. The final action scene actually has some possible historical basis, although well garbled.Bat did apprehend a man who accidentally killed a saloon girl. There was a Dodge City street incident in which he shot and killed the man who had just shot and killed his brother, who was marshal of the town. Put these two incidents together, garble them a bit, and you have the final action scene. If you have seen the Jimmy Stewart-starring "The Far Country", the ending will also be rather familiar. As in "Abilene Town" (and so many other films), we have two young women involved: a saloon girl, and a straight-laced one. Maggie Meredith(as Susan Pritchard), the prim debutante from the east, is revealed as an opportunistic gold digger, and does not deserve her fate in the story. Anne Jeffreys plays the uncommonly good looking saloon girl Ruby Stone, with a heart of gold, who also doesn't deserve her fate in the ending. Actually, Anne Dvorak, in "Abilene Town" was more charismatic than Jeffreys, had better songs to belt out, and had a much more interesting relationship with Scott. Robert Ryan, as the business partner of the homesteaders and Scott's ally in reigning in the criminal element among the cattlemen, is not my favorite actor. Too stiff, unemotional and non-charismatic. Gabby Hayes, as Scott's other chief ally, plays his usual talkative, ornery, charismatic self. The plot involves the unusual factor of the homesteaders wanting to leave, not only because the cattlemen are destroying their crops and homes, but because their crops dry up before they mature. In the story, a lone farmer says he has discovered how to grow wheat so it won't dry up. The secret is to use the right(imported) seed and plant it in the fall, rather than the spring. Again, this has some historical basis, although garbled. Winter wheat growing on the Great Plains was begun in Kansas by German and Russian Mennonite homesteaders. Others imported improved varieties from Russia. Still, drought was a real threat, and homesteaders sometimes gave up after a series of drought years. Getting back to the story in the film, the cattle interests, of course, try to do everything to prevent the spread of the idea of growing winter wheat and to destroy the special wheat seeds needed to grow this.If you are a dyed in the wool Randy fan, you will want to see both this and "Abilene Town". I somewhat prefer the latter, although the quality of the film copies available is poorer than for the present film. On the other hand, owning a DVD copy of "Abilene Town" is much cheaper, especially now that it is part of a very cheap Scott films package.

vitaleralphlouis Do a title search on Randolph Scott and TRAIL STREET is the one film missing from the list you've seen. One of 4 films Scott made at RKO during his prime (1947) the others are always easy to get. Liberal, Kansas is just southwest of Dodge City and is a powder-keg about to explode between the trail-riders who drive the longhorns into Trail Street, the town's main street, and the sod-busters who feed our bellies. It'll take a strong man like Bat Masterson to step between the two groups and bring the town to order. More I won't say, except that Scott movies usually have just one pretty girl and this one has three. RANDOLPH SCOTT always played men you could look up to for their sense of honor, courage, level-headedness and willingness to do the right thing. Fifty years ago parents could send their kids to a Scott movie with confidence they'd learn positive values. ROBERT RYAN co-stars in this film, playing a good guy for a change. In real life, RYAN was one of the many WORLD WAR II HEROS who starred in America's movies. How sad what we get these days. George Clooney teaches our young that we ought sympathize with suicide bombers, while Steven Spielberg teaches there is no moral difference between the Olympic athletes murdered in 1972 in Munich and the Palestinian terrorists who killed them. Hollywood 2005 derives their moral compass from too much cocaine and too much commitment to the wacky left. I wonder how all this plays out in Liberal, Kansas. Liberal, after all, was not a dirty word 150 years ago when the city was named.

biker45 ***MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*** TRAIL STREET is an average western that distinguishes itself by possibly being the inspiration for the highly praised Howard Hawks-John Wayne extravaganza RIO BRAVO (1959). There are many close plot similarities between the two films, and several characters are nearly identical as well. A greedy land grabbing villain is running all the farmers off their homesteads so that he can build a cattle empire in Kansas. Randolph Scott plays the heavily outnumbered marshal Bat Masterson, trying to hold the leader of a "regulator" gang in jail for trial. Helping him is shotgun-wielding deputy Gabby Hayes. Substitute John Wayne for Scott, Walter Brennan for Hayes, add a teenage idol (Ricky Nelson), some color film, and you've got RIO BRAVO.TRAIL STREET is also notable for the casting of Robert Ryan in an against type good guy role. Overall, TRAIL STREET is worth a look for fans of the western genre, but others will probably lose interest.