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Spoilers (3)
One of the first movies to market itself with a making-of documentary aired on TV. Gig Young hosted the program, with Jeffrey Hunter as the guest.
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Western star Harry Carey died in 1947. Director John Ford cast Carey's wife (Olive Carey) as Mrs. Jorgensen (the mother) and Carey's son (Harry Carey Jr.) as one of the sons (Brad) as a tribute to Carey. In the closing scene with John Wayne framed in the doorway, Wayne holds his right elbow with his left hand in a pose that Carey fans would recognize as one that he often used. Wayne later stated he did it as a tribute to Carey. Off-camera, Olive watched.
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Lana Wood played young Debbie Edwards and Natalie Wood, who was Lana's older sister by eight years, played teenaged Debbie Edwards.
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The Mexican man who takes the searchers to meet Chief Scar is called Emilio Gabriel Fernandez y Figueroa. The name of this character, played by Antonio Moreno, is a combination of the names of Mexican actor and director Emilio Fernandez and his cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa, both of whom were friends of director John Ford.
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Hank Worden (Mose Harper) was tied up finishing shooting on The Indian Fighter and was unavailable for some shots in this movie. In scenes where the Rangers have ridden out together in Monument Valley, 'Old Mose Harper' is played in group shots by another actor hanging back and hiding his face. Single shots of Worden as Harper in these scenes were shot later.
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Was voted the both the 13th Greatest Film of all time and the Greatest Western of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
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Natalie Wood was still a student in high school when this film was being made, and on several occasions both John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter had to pick her up at school on days when she was required on the set. This caused a good deal of excitement among Wood's female classmates.
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The film's screenplay was adapted by Frank S. Nugent from Alan Le May's 1954 novel of the same name, that was first serialized as a short story in late fall 1954 issues of the Saturday Evening Post, and first titled, "The Avenging Texans", acknowledged similarities existed between the film's script and an actual Comanche kidnapping of Cynthia Ann Parker, a young white girl in Texas in 1836.
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Considering the part of Ethan Edwards to be the best character he ever portrayed on-screen and his favorite film role, John Wayne named a son Ethan Wayne in homage.
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A significant portion of the film's labyrinthine plot is revealed on a throwaway prop that most casual viewers rarely notice. Just before the Indian raid on the Edwards homestead, the tombstone (of Ethan's mother) that Debbie hides next to reveals the source of Ethan's glaring hatred for Comanches. The marker reads: "Here lies Mary Jane Edwards killed by Commanches May 12, 1852. A good wife and mother in her 41st year."
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The eccentric character of Mose Harper, played by Hank Worden, is loosely based on an actual historical personage called Mad Mose, a legendary half-crazy Indian fighter of the American southwest with a fondness for rocking chairs.
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In a biography of John Ford it is mentioned that Ward Bond, in his motel room after shooting, would walk around naked with the curtains open in hopes of attracting Vera Miles. Apparently, this plan did not have the intended results.
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The melody behind the opening credits is "Lorena", written by Joseph Webster and Henry DeLafayette Webster. Though this song was written in Chicago in 1857, it is best known for being favored by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. The lyrics are the longings of a man for his now-dead wife.
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The medal that Ethan gives away is the Order of St. Guadalupe, the second highest award of the Mexicans at the time (equivalent to the Distinguished Service Cross). Many Confederates went south after the war and as a Horse Artillery Sergeant (red SGT stripes with yellow britches stripes) he would have been highly paid.
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The song playing as John Wayne approaches at the beginning of the film is a slow version of "The Bonnie Blue Flag" (original title: "The Irish Jaunting Car"). This song and Daniel Decatur Emmett's "Dixie" were the two "anthems" of the Confederacy.
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According to Harry Carey Jr.'s book "Company of Heroes", John Wayne stayed in character between takes.
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Fess Parker was offered the part of Martin but Walt Disney refused to loan him out. Jeffrey Hunter got the role instead. Parker and Hunter would later star together in The Great Locomotive Chase.
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According to film restorer Ned Price, by 1991 when the first digital transfer was made (on Laserdisc), the yellow layer of the original VistaVision negative had completely faded, making it unusable. Black and white separation masters (yellow, cyan, and magenta) made in the late 1950s have been used since then to master DVD releases.
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Ranked #1 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Western" in June 2008.
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John Wayne's performance as Ethan Edwards is ranked #87 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
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In the dance scene just before the wedding, the male dancers are some of the most famous and toughest stunt men of the period. Chuck Hayward, Terry Wilson, John Hudkins, Fred Kennedy, Frank McGrath and Chuck Roberson can all be seen dancing. After the scene the crew nicknamed them "Ford's chorus girls". At the end of the scene John Wayne moves to the bar and Roberson says, "Let's have a drink." As he speaks, Hayward and Wilson move into the shot behind Wayne. Wayne is then surrounded by the three men who doubled him at various times in the movie.
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Reportedly this film was seen in a theater in Texas by Buddy Holly and his friends in the summer of 1956. They were so impressed with Ethan's (John Wayne) repeated use of the phrase "That'll be the day" that they used it as the title for their now standard R'n'R song that they composed soon after.
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The actors playing Comanche Indians are all Navajo, with the exception of Chief Scar, played by German actor Henry Brandon. The language, traditional dress, dances depicted in the film are all Navajo, not Comanche. The "Comanche Death Song" is actually a social Navajo "Squaw Dance Song".
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Spoilers
In the climactic scene, John Wayne and Natalie Wood run up the side of a hill in Monument Valley, Utah... and come down the other side of the hill in the Bronson Canyon area of Griffith Park, Los Angeles (647 miles away).
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According to John Wayne in a 1974 interview, John Ford hinted throughout the movie that Ethan had had an affair with his brother's wife, and was possibly the father of Lucy and Debbie. This meant Ethan's thirst for vengeance stemmed not from the murder of his brother, but of the woman Ethan had loved. This was so subtle that many viewers at the time missed it altogether.
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Inspired by real events: In 1836 the Comanches abducted one Cynthia Ann Parker. She was raised by them and became a member of the tribe, until the tribe was attacked and Parker was "snatched back," against her will. She lamented this and missed her son for the rest of her life. Fiction, however, has nothing on truth: Her son, Quanah Parker, became a Comanche leader. When his troops surrendered, he went to live among white men and became a businessman.
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