While shooting Red River (1948), there was a scene that director Howard Hawks unsuccessfully urged John Wayne to do. It involved his getting a finger mangled between a saddle horn and a rope, resulting in Walter Brennan's amputating it. Hawks reportedly told Wayne, "If you're not good enough, we won't do it", but Wayne wouldn't do it. According to Hawks biographer Todd McCarthy, Hawks did get Kirk Douglas to do that scene in this film, and it came off so funny that Wayne later declared to Hawks, "If you tell me a funeral is funny, I'll do a funeral."
Montgomery Clift was offered the role of "Boone Caudill", but turned it down. It was eventually given to Dewey Martin.
Narrated by Arthur Hunnicutt.
Howard Hawks recycled his protagonists singing "Whiskey Leave Me Alone" ten years later when he made "Hatari" with John Wayne in 1962.