"Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on June 7, 1951 with Gregory Peck reprising his film role.
Bob Dylan's 1986 song "Brownsville Girl," co-written with Sam Shepard, alludes to watching Gregory Peck in this film. Peck himself thanked Dylan publicly when he delivered the speech when Dylan was given his Kennedy Center award in 1997.
Based on the life and exploits of an actual western gunslinger named John Ringo, a distant cousin of the outlaw Younger family. The real Ringo was a ruthless murderer and survivor of the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral, against (Dr.) John Holliday, Wyatt Earp and the Earp brothers. Also unlike the movie's account, the actual John Ringo--his real name--suffered a severe bout of melancholy following a visit to his family in California in July of 1882 and went on a monumental ten-day alcoholic binge, which climaxed when he sat down under an oak tree, drew his gun and used it to commit suicide.
In 1996, veteran character actor Richard Jaeckel, who played "Eddie", was diagnosed with cancer at the same time his wife had Alzheimer's disease. The Jaeckels had lost their Brentwood (CA) home, were over $1 million in debt and Jaeckel was basically homeless. His family tried unsuccessfully to place him into the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA. Peck lobbied for Jaeckel's admittance, and three days later Jaeckel was placed in the facility. He stayed in the hospital until his death in June 1997.
In the original ending Hunt Bromley was arrested by the sheriff, but studio chief Darryl Zanuck was so enraged at this resolution, so director King and writer Johnson concocted the ending where Bromley is beat up by the sheriff and let go. That satisfied Zanuck more.
Large painting on wall behind Gregory Peck's chair in bar room is "Custer's Last Fight", painted in 1884 by Cassily Adams and reproduced as a lithographic print by Otto Becker from Adams's original painting. These prints were distributed in 1896 to bars and taverns all over America by the Anheuser Busch Company.
The original story was written by John Bowers and Andre de Toth with John Wayne in mind. Wayne loved it and offered Bowers $10,000 for it. The writer thought it was worth more and told Wayne how he felt. The actor reportedly said, Well, you wrote it for me. Don't you have any artistic integrity?" Bowers later got $70,000 for it at Fox, and Wayne harbored ill-feelings about the incident, accusing Bowers of selling it out from under him.
The studio hated Gregory Peck's authentic period mustache. In fact, the head of production at Fox, Spyros P. Skouras, was out of town when production began. By the time he got back, so much of the film had been shot that it was too late to order Peck to shave it off and re-shoot. After the film did not do well at the box office, Skouras ran into Peck and he reportedly said, "That mustache cost us millions".
The western street in this film is the same one used in The Ox-Bow Incident.
This film was the subject of the classic Bob Dylan song "Brownsville Girl". It starts: "There was this movie I seen one time, about a man riding 'cross the desert and it starred Gregory Peck. He was shot down by a hungry kid, trying to make a name for himself, the townspeople wanted to track that kid down and string him up by his neck. 'Turn him loose, let him go, let him say he outdrew me fair and square. I want him to feel what it's like to every moment face his death'" Then Dylan goes on to compare his own position in pop music to the gunfighter.