Billie Burke, age 76, played Cordelia Fosgate, the wife of Col. Fosgate, played by Willis Bouchey, who was only 53.
Jeffrey Hunter's character refers early on in the film to the Jorgensen Ranch. Director John Ford's classic western The Searchers, also starring Hunter, ended with Hunter's character arriving at the Jorgensen Ranch.
Final film of Billie Burke.
Originated in 1957 as a project for director André De Toth, about a black soldier accused of raping and murdering a German girl and the lieutenant who defends him and proves his innocence. De Toth wanted Jeffrey Hunter as the defense attorney. Based on the 1955 story "Shadow of the Noose" by John Hawkins and Ward Hawkins in The Saturday Evening Post.
Unsatisfied with Woody Strode's rehearsal of bullet-wounded drowsiness, director John Ford took his own steps to make Strode appear authentically weary for Rutledge's gunshot early on in the film. The day before the scene was to be shot, Ford got Strode drunk early in the day and had an assistant follow him around for the rest of the day to make sure he stayed that way. When the time came for Strode to shoot the scene with Constance Towers, his hangover gave him the perfect (for Ford) appearance of a man who had been shot.
WILHELM SCREAM: An Indian rides alongside a soldier and stabs him with a spear.