Near the end of the movie, Luke Plummer (Tom Tyler) has a pair of black aces and a pair of black eights. This is the notorious "dead man's hand" supposed to have been held by Wild Bill Hickok before he was killed.
Pictured on one of four 25ยข US commemorative postage stamps issued 23 March 1990 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp featured Stagecoach, Beau Geste, The Wizard of Oz, and Gone with the Wind.
Producer Walter Wanger wanted Gary Cooper for the role of Ringo but Cooper's fees were too high. Bruce Cabot unsuccessfully tested for it before John Ford got his wish and cast John Wayne.
Ranked #9 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Western" in June 2008.
The hat that John Wayne wears is his own. He would wear it in many westerns during the next two decades before retiring it after Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo, because it was simply "falling apart." After that, the hat was displayed under glass in his home.
The interior sets all have ceilings, an unusual practice at the time for studio filming. This was to create a claustrophobic effect in complete counterpoint to the wide open expanse of Monument Valley.
The premise of Ernest Haycox's story comes from Guy de Maupassant's famous story 'Boule de Suif', which takes place in Normandy during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War.
This was the first of many films that John Ford filmed in Monument Valley, Arizona. Others were: My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Wagon Master, Rio Grande, The Searchers, Sergeant Rutledge and his last western, Cheyenne Autumn.
When the film was being cast, John Ford lobbied hard for John Wayne but producer Walter Wanger kept saying no. It was only after constant persistence on Ford's part that Wanger finally gave in. Wanger's reservations were based on Wayne's string of B-movies, in which he came across as being a less than competent actor, and the box office failure of Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail in 1930, Wayne's first serious starring role.