Anecdotes

At one point, Johnny says, "I'm a stranger here myself." This was Nicholas Ray's own personal motto, a recurring theme in his movies, and reportedly the working title for just about every movie he directed.

In scenes where the horses rode near a waterfall, they were fitted with blinders. The animals were so afraid of the waterfall that they wouldn't go near it without the blinders on.

In an interview in the Criterion Collection release of L'Ultime Razzia (1956), Sterling Hayden stated that he did not care for this film. "They put string, like you get at the grocery store, over my guitar in case I accidentally hit them," he said, acknowledging that "I can't play guitar, and can't sing a good-goddamn either." "I was at war on that film, during the daytime, with Joan Crawford," he recalled, "and at night with my second wife." Despite his reservations about the film, Hayden acknowledged its popularity.

Joan Crawford insisted on her closeups only being filmed in the studio, where the lighting could be rigidly controlled. No closeups of her were shot while on location.

Joan Crawford, who had bought the rights to the novel and sold it to Republic Pictures with the provision that she would star, initially wanted Claire Trevor to play the part of Emma and was jealous of the younger, competitive Mercedes McCambridge.