Ben Gazzara, Pat Hingle, Peter Mark Richman (as Mark Richman), Arthur Storch, and Paul E. Richards played the same roles on stage. The play "End as a Man" opened on Broadway at the Vanderbilt Theatre, 148 W. 48th St. on 14 October 1953 and ran for 105 performances.
Based on the fiction novel 'End as a Man' by Calder Willingham. Said to be the authors experience as a cadet at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. The school has a long, proud (and infamous) tradition of hazing freshman or "knobs". Willingham attended The Citadel, but did not graduate from the college.
In his next feature film, Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Ben Gazzarra again played a domineering military man who used a cigarette holder when smoking.