Began shooting late July 1953.
Filmed in two separate versions - 3-D and CinemaScope - with different aspect ratios (1.37:1 for the 3-D, and 2.55:1 for the CinemaScope print). Only the wide screen version was ever released, though the 3-D elements still exist in Warner Bros. vault. Also the first wide screen Western of the 1950's. The flat (i.e. non 3-D) 1.37:1 version was also made available to theatres who were not yet equipped to project CinemaScope.
The wide-screen version of this film was photographed using Zeiss anamorphic lenses. The system was to be called WarnerScope, but it was essentially a straight copy of Fox's CinemaScope process. However, Warner Bros. realized that the Zeiss lenses were of inferior quality to the Bausch & Lomb lenses Fox used for CinemaScope. Ultimately it decided to drop the WarnerScope name, and instead licensed CinemaScope from Fox so it could use the superior Bausch & Lomb-designed lenses. These were first used by Warner for A Star Is Born.
There's a scene where Indians are attacking the wagons full of soldiers, and one Indian gets shot off his horse and then is run over by a wagon drawn by four horses. That wasn't a planned stunt - he was supposed to be "shot" and fall off the side of his horse, but the horse unexpectedly reared back and dumped him into the path of the wagon, which ran over him. He suffered numerous broken bones and ribs, but the scene was left in.
WILHELM SCREAM: As an Indian is shot off of his horse during the wagon convoy attack.