"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on September 18, 1944 with William Eythe reprising his film role.
Sara Allgood was originally cast in the role of "Jennie 'Ma' Grier," but was replaced by Florence Bates. Bates was then injured in a horseback riding scene, necessitating her replacement by Jane Darwell, who appears in the finished film.
Henry Fonda always regarded this as one of his favorite films.
Henry Fonda was generally unhappy with the quality of the films he had to do while under contract with 20th Century Fox. This was one of only two films from that period that he was actually enthusiastic about starring in. The other was The Grapes of Wrath.
Henry Fonda, who had a deferment, enlisted in the U.S. Navy immediately upon completing filming for this movie.
20th Century Fox didn't think highly of the project so insisted that it be shot on studio backlots to keep the budget down.
A very unusual film for its time in that it features an Afro-American character as one of the main voices of conscience.
Although made in 1941, this sat on the shelf for two years as 20th Century Fox had no idea how to market a film with such inflammatory politics.
Director William A. Wellman loved the novel "The Ox-Bow Incident" and had long wanted to make it into a film, but the rights-holders insisted that he cast Mae West in any adaptation, which Wellman thought was ridiculous. Finally, Wellman bought the rights himself, and proceeded to make the film "his" way.
Head of 20th Century Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck, overcame his objections to the contentious nature of the film by insisting that it be made cheaply on studio sets.
One of a select group of films to secure just one Oscar nomination, albeit in the Best Picture category. The other members in this club are Grand Hotel and One Foot in Heaven.
The early versions of the script included the suicide of "Gerald Tetley" and that the film was to end with the reappearance of "Rose Mapen" and her husband in the saloon rather than with "Gil" and "Art" leaving to take the letter to "Martin's" wife. The contents of Martin's letter are not revealed in the book, but director William A. Wellman thought that it was important to make them explicit and had Lamar Trotti compose the letter.
The Hays Office--the industry's censors--initially was reluctant to approve the script because of its suggestion that the sheriff condoned the lynchings. The treatment of the lynchings and the characterization of those participating were discussed by the PCA and the studio at great length, and in a June 9, 1942 letter, PCA director Joseph Breen advised studio public relations head Jason S. Joy that the script would be approved if: "Major Tetley's" suicide is retained, "thus constituting a punishment for the ring-leader of the lynching party;" there is an indication that the whole gang will be arrested; the character of "Gil" is rewritten to make him less callous and more active in trying to stop the lynchings; and "Davies'" denunciation of the killings is retained.
The production on the film would be shut down for a week or ten days "due to the $5,000-per-film limit on new construction materials." During the shutdown, already used sets were torn down so that their material could be re-used to build the mountain pass set. Studio publicity noted that the Ox-Bow Valley setting was "the largest set ever constructed" by Fox, and that it covered 26,703 feet.
The rights to Walter Van Tilburg Clark's book were originally acquired in 1941 by Harold Hurley, a former Paramount producer who tried unsuccessfully to make a distribution deal with United Artists. Modern sources note that director William A. Wellman bought the rights from Hurley and then interested Twentieth Century-Fox production chief Darryl F. Zanuck in producing the story. Zanuck agreed on the condition that Wellman direct two other films for the studio, Thunder Birds [Soldiers of the Air] and Buffalo Bill.
The western street in this film is the same one used in The Gunfighter.
This was the last movie ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture which received no other Academy Award nominations.