When he first read this script, Dennis Morgan realized studio head Jack Warner was hoping Morgan would hate it enough to turn it down and possibly buy out his contract. Instead, the actor showed up with a smile plastered on his face and never spoke a complaint. When asked why he put up with being forced into such an obvious stinker, Morgan remarked: "Do you think I'm going to pass up a weekly paycheck? I'm going to get every last penny coming my way..."
When the first cut of this film was screened for studio head Jack Warner, he found it all but unreleasable. He was especially unimpressed with a bar-room brawl sequence but, rather than spending money to re-shoot it, he told studio editors to re-use footage from a similar scene in Dodge City (1939) instead.
As was often the case, WB drew upon a lot of stock footage, from earlier, higher budgeted productions, to enhance the look of this one, so some long retired, or even dead performers show up in some of the crowd scenes.
At the time he made this film, Merv Griffin was under contract to Warner Brothers for $250 a week. He was under the impression he would be groomed to replace Gordon McRae as Doris Day's leading man, and when he was handed the screenplay for this film, he was shocked at being cast in a Western...and even more shocked at how minor a role he'd been given, little more than a walk-on part.
This is one of three films released in the US in 1952 featuring Robert J. Wilke and Sheb Wooley. The other two are High Noon and Hellgate.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
