Black Horse Canyon (1954)

A rancher (Mari Blanchard) has trouble holding on to a wild stallion she raised when he was a colt. His yearning to be free has him constantly escaping and running away to run with wild horses. When a cowboy (Joel McCrea) and his young sidekick (Race Gentry, whose acting is awful) move into the ranch next to hers, they help her in trying to locate the stallion and finally domesticate him. Based on the novel by Les Savage Jr. and directed by Jesse Hibbs (TO HELL AND BACK). This is a family friendly western with a horse at the center. The stallion itself is a beauty and one can't help but feel sorry for him. He's happy being wild and free and it seems a shame to "break" him so he can be ridden and fenced in a corral. I mean it's one thing if he's born on a ranch and that's all he knows, it's another thing to have known freedom and have that taken away from you, even if you are an animal. But I digress, the film is not concerned with that. It's an amiable western that takes advantage of the Arizona locations. McCrea is an old hand at stuff like and it's nice to see Blanchard playing the nice girl for a change. With Murvyn Vye and Irving Bacon.