It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The producing/directing team of Harry Sherman and George Archaimbaud who turned out a couple dozen Hopalong Cassidy movies moved away from Hoppy and the Bar 20 to give us The Kansan, an independent film from United Artists. This western stars Richard Dix as the Shane like character who takes a hand in stopping a bank robbery by the notorious James gang. Dix gets good and shot up for his troubles, but while he's on the mend he finds he's been elected town marshal.Engineering his election is town banker Albert Dekker who has many interests, legal and extralegal and he'd like a gun-hand like Dix as marshal to look after those interests. Dekker has cause for regret as Dix takes the job very seriously. Dix also starts courting Jane Wyatt the local innkeeper.That doesn't sit well with Victor Jory who is Dekker's brother. But Jory plays a lone hand in life as the film unfolds.Dix's best years on screen were way behind him when he did The Kansan, but he could and does contribute a solid western characterization and gets solid support from the cast. Eugene Palette as a visiting cattle baron looks a bit lost in the western garb, but he works through it.Western fans will recognize some distinct plot elements the Cecil B. DeMille classic Union Pacific. If you do you know exactly how The Kansan will end.

This probably doesn't deserve the "B Movie" sobriquet. The production values are pretty high and it is quite heavy on the movie stars. This looks to me like it would have taken the A spot on a bill. Dix is good but Victor Jory nearly steals the show. The high point is likely one of the most over-the-top barroom brawls I've ever seen on celluloid. The script is also fine, although nothing too original. The low point in the movie....aside from a really unfortunate racial caricature.... is probably represented by a really ghastly World War II style showgirl routine based around "When Johnny Comes Marching Home". All in all, a satisfying show.

Bystander Richard Dix stops a bank robbery by the James gang. Badly injured, he awakens to find himself unwittingly elected the town's new marshal, at the behest of local bank president Albert Dekker, who turns out to be a tyrant who wants Dix firmly under his thumb, a position the marshal has no plans to assume.The best things about this are the presence of Dix and Dekker, as well as a rowdy saloon fight that has people swinging from chandeliers and rioting uncontrollably. Everything else is too derivative and too mediocre to be memorable.Look fast for George Reeves as Jesse James.

Richard Dix was such a versatile actor and while he could play anything (he even started a series based on "The Whistler" a few years before he died) I think it was Westerns that he was best suited to. "The Kansan" was his last western and the supporting cast reads like a Hollywood Who's Who - Albert Dekker, Eugene Palette, Victor Jory, Robert Armstrong, Willie Best. It might not be from a big studio but the cast is tops!!!John Bonneville wakes up in hospital, not knowing what has happened to him. He has been made Marshall because he stopped the James Gang from robbing the town bank. He was just passing through and is not too keen on being made a Marshall. Most of the town are eager for him to have a go, especially Eleanor (Jane Wyatt, looking very fetching) who not only nurses him in hospital but also runs the town hotel.Sheriff Steve Barat (Albert Dekker from "Dr. Cyclops") has bought up a lot of land and is charging huge fees for people wanting to use the roads. When Bonneville's old friend, Tom Waggoner (Eugene Palette) asks him to help get his cattle across, John realises the Sheriff isn't as honest as he thought. He also realises why he was made a Marshall - so he could be just a pawn in the Marshall's scheme. There is a fight in the saloon that is action packed and very realistic. When the two bandits who caused the fight, are released from jail on bail, Waggoner is killed. The Sheriff, who put up the bail plans to ship the bail money to Kansas, with his brother's help. Victor Jory plays Jeff and even though he is at first eager to help his brother (he has gambling debts) he ends up on the right side of the law. His death saves the town.Robert Armstrong plays Malachy a bandit who helps John and Willie Best plays "Bones" in yet another humiliating depiction of a black man.Recommended.