The Ox-Bow Incident (1943)

[Gil Carter reading Martin's letter]
Gil Carter: "My dear Wife, Mr. Davies will tell you what's happening here tonight. He's a good man and has done everything he can for me. I suppose there are some other good men here, too, only they don't seem to realize what they're doing. They're the ones I feel sorry for. 'Cause it'll be over for me in a little while, but they'll have to go on remembering for the rest of their lives. A man just naturally can't take the law into his own hands and hang people without hurtin' everybody in the world, 'cause then he's just not breaking one law but all laws. Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It's everything people ever have found out about justice and what's right and wrong. It's the very conscience of humanity. There can't be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody's conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived? I guess that's all I've got to say except kiss the babies for me and God bless you. Your husband, Donald."

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Art Croft: [talking about Gil Carter] Whenever he gets low in spirits or confused in his mind, he doesn't feel right until he's had a fight. It doesn't matter whether he wins or not. He feels fine again afterwards.

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Gil Carter: [Gil and Art discuss their uneasiness about certain members of the posse] Besides, I like to pick my own bosses.
Art Croft: Whether we picked 'em or not, we sure got 'em.
Gil Carter: That's what I don't like. That Smith, and Bartlett, shootin' off their mouths... Farnley... and that renegade Tetley, struttin' around in his uniform pretending he's so much. He never even *saw* the South until after the war, and then only long enough to marry that kid's mother and get run outta' the place by her folks.
Art Croft: I figured there was somethin' fishy about him, dressin' up like that.
Gil Carter: For sure. Whydya' suppose he'd be livin' in this neck 'o the woods if he didn't have something to hide?

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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 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 role played by Henry Fonda was originally offered to Gary Cooper, who turned it down.
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