Big Land, The (DVD)

When Chad Morgan (Alan Ladd) rides home to Texas after the Civil War, he finds another enemy to battle: Brog, a corrupt cattle buyer who forces honest ranchers into financial ruin. Morgan thinks he can thwart Brog by building a town at a new rail spur where cattlemen can safely bring their herds to market. But Brog and his henchmen set out to destroy the town and it may take a gun-blazing showdown to vanquish him. In The Big Land, Ladd revisits the Western genre he made his own with his iconic title performance in Shane. Virginia Mayo, perhaps best remembered as James Cagney's two-timing moll in White Heat, plays a saloon songbird who believes in Morgan's dream. Edmond O'Brien, another White Heat co-star, portrays her booze-broken brother, an architect with the know-how to construct the town. Coscreenwriter David Dortort went on to create and produce TV's long-running Bonanza.

• western