Cattle Empire

Little more than a B-feature, and barely shown at all in the UK, this routine western dates from the twilight of veteran Joel McCrea's career, a period when his name could only guarantee co-feature status, but before his successful comeback in Sam Peckinpah's elegiac Ride the High Country. McCrea lends real authority to the tale, and fans of 1950s B-movies will welcome the presence of Gloria Talbott from I Married a Monster from Outer Space and Phyllis Coates from Superman and the Mole Men. Watch out, too, for Kurt Russell's dad, Bing. Classic western fans will shy away from this Charles Marquis Warren confection: he displays all the TV production values that enabled him to produce such long-running series as Gunsmoke and Rawhide both quickly and economically. Despite being filmed on impressive locations worthy of CinemaScope, the overall effect is cheap, and unworthy of McCrea.