Production

The studio purchased W. R. Burnett‘s unpublished novel for $35,000 in November 1947. All drafts of the screenplay were written by Lamar Trotti.

The western commenced a construction crew of over 150 men and women to build a ghost town in the desert near Lone Pine, California, by demolishing a movie set, called “Last Outpost”, that Tom Mix had built in 1923. Exteriors were also filmed at Death Valley National Monument, with the cast and crew living at Furnace Creek Inn and Camp, which was leased from the Pacific Coast Borax Company.

At the time of filming, animal cruelty regulations only permitted horses to be on the set for three hours.

The opening and closing music was taken from Alfred Newman’s score for the Twentieth Century-Fox film Brigham Young (1940), which was also written by Trotti.

Adaptations and remakes

The success of the film spawned a radio adaptation starring Peck and hosted by director William A. Wellman which was broadcast on Screen Directors’ Playhouse on NBC Radio on July 15, 1949.

The film was remade in 1967 as The Jackals. Filmed in South Africa by producer-director Robert D. Webb, The Jackals starred Robert Gunner, Diana Iverson and, as the old man, Vincent Price. The film, however, was never given a theatrical release, but was shown on television.

Cast

• Gregory Peck as James ‘Stretch’ Dawson
• Anne Baxter as Constance Mae or ‘Mike’
• Richard Widmark as Dude
• Robert Arthur as Bull Run
• John Russell as Lengthy
• Harry Morgan as Half Pint
• James Barton as Grandpa
• Charles Kemper as Walrus