Wild Stallion

Who can capture and gentle the majestic white stallion called Top Kick? If anyone can, it's horse tracker Dan Light, who has a special connection to the elusive mount. Top Kick was Dan's boyhood pet, a spirited colt who escaped during an Indian raid on the Light family's homestead. Ben Johnson, who etched his name in Western lore with Wagon Master, The Wild Bunch and other cowboy classics and who laid claim to a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the 1971 drama The Last Picture Show, portrays the adult Dan. Edgar Buchanan and Martha Hyer costar in a scenic, filmed-in-color tale that has Dan wrangling and retraining the turned-wild horse, brawling bare-knuckled with a cavalryman who mistreats it, and finding his loyalty to the stallion repaid when Top Kick fights ferocious wolves while Dan lies wounded and helpless after an Indian attack. Lewis D. Collins, who directed more than 120 works during his career, guides the excitement.

• western