Stampede

"Fear-lashed herds thundering to doom!" promised ads about one of the rousing action sequences in this Western starring popular cowboy star Rod Cameron. Tall, handsome Cameron plays iron-willed Mike McCall, an 1880s Arizona cattleman marked for death by corrupt land developers and victimized by their villainous scheme to stir up a rampage that sends McCall's panicked herd pounding across the range and toppling helplessly over a high cliff. Gale Storm, soon to be a mainstay of 1950s television, costars as a spirited, newly arrived settler drawn by the lure of cheap land. Longtime sagebrush hero Johnny Mack Brown plays the sheriff who sides with McCall. And a notable behind-the-scenes career gathers momentum with Stampede: Blake Edwards (The Pink Panther, Victor Victoria) is the film's cowriter and coproducer.

• western