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THE STORY:
Peck plays Stretch, the leader of a band of bank robbers. Barely surviving their escape through the desert, they find themselves in what they think is a ghost town. Instead they find an old minor and his daughter...and a goldmine.
BEHIND THE SCENES:
If you notice Peck favoring his left leg in this film, it's not completely due to his acting. While trying out his mount at a San Fernando Valley ranch, the horse lost its footing and fell hard on Greg's left leg as his foot was still stuck in the stirrup. Due to the impatience of studio executives, after quick...and improper...surgery to reset the broken leg, Greg was back on the set in only four weeks. The leg would never heal properly and Greg would always wear a support when playing sports or filming scenes requiring running.
THE DIRECTOR:
One of Greg's favorite directors, William Wellman had earned a reputation and a nickname ("Wild Bill") for creating action packed stories with a good morality tale. "He never spoke when he could shout and never used conventional language when he could swear," wrote Michael Freedland in his Peck bio. Wellman's background in the Foreign Legion and as a WWI pilot proved useful as he took home the first Oscar ever given for Best Picture...winning for the 1927 hit Wings with Gary Cooper. He went on to direct the 1931 classic Public Enemy and directed his own script for 1937's A Star is Born. In 1943 he worked with Yellow Sky screenwriter Lamar Trotti on The Ox-Bow Incident.
THE CO-STARS:
Anne Baxter made her debut at the tender age of 17 in Twenty Mule Team. She went on to star in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), All About Eve (1950), and The Razor's Edge for which she won the 1946 Best Supporting Actress Academy Award.
1948 was a busy year for Richard Widmark who debuted the same year in Kiss of Death and also added Road House and The Street with No Name to his list of credits.
THE AWARDS:
Lamar Trotti, who also wrote the 1943 screenplay for The Ox-Bow Incident, and W.R. Burnett won the 1949 Writers Guild of America award for Best American Western.
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