Details

Release year: 1961

Storyline

An ex-army officer accidentally kills a woman's son and tries to make up for it by escorting the funeral procession through dangerous Indian territory.

Top credits

Directors

Sam Peckinpah

Writers

Albert Sidney Fleischman

Cast

Maureen O'Hara — Kit Tildon
Brian Keith — Yellowleg
Steve Cochran — Billy Keplinger
Chill Wills — Turk

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Did you know

• Maureen O'Hara, her brother Charles B. Fitzsimons and writer Albert Sidney Fleischman formed Carousel Productions in order to get the film made. Sam Peckinpah was hired for $15,000, Brian Keith was paid $30,000; the entire picture was done for $300,000. Another brother, James O'Hara, has a small role in the opening scenes.

• The producers found it difficult to get financial backing for the picture due to the subject matter (carrying a dead child in a coffin through Indian territory). They refused to change the story. Based on the success of the novel, "Yellowleg", on which the film is based, Pathe America was persuaded to co-finance the film along with the Theater Owners of America.

• According to Maureen O'Hara in her memoirs "Tis Herself", Sam Peckinpah was a very lousy director. For instance, he missed the filming of an important sequence involving an Indian attack. Peckinpah also seemed to enjoy cruelty towards animals, such as a horse trampling a snake to death. O'Hara also felt very uncomfortable seeing Peckinpah on the set scratching his crotch all day long. She wrote that he "Didn't have a clue how to direct a movie" and was "One of the strangest and most objectionable people I had ever worked with".