Hal B. Wallis bought Les Crutchfield 's story in March 1954 and planned it as a possible starring vehicle for Charlton Heston or Burt Lancaster.
Kirk Douglas 's salary was $325,000 against ten percent of the gross.
Additional filming took place on May 28th and 29th, 1958.
For the sequences showing the train in Gun Hill, Paramount installed 600 feet of track snaking in and around their western street located at their Hollywood studio. At one point the steam engine traveled right under the window of Paramount chief executive Y. Frank Freeman who protested so much about the resulting noise that the tracks had to be moved.