Trivia

This was the final feature film for cult director Joseph H. Lewis. He would spend much of the next decade directing television episodes before retiring from the industry. His other work includes: My Name Is Julia Ross (1945), a terse little thriller about a case of mistaken identity, Gun Crazy (1950), a variation on the Bonnie and Clyde story told with gripping narrative skill, and the astonishing film noir thriller, The Big Combo (1955), which is as raw and edgy as any gangster thriller made that decade - all ingenious efforts that prove Lewis was one of the great low-budget stylists of his era.

Gerald Fried composed a minimalist and non-traditional score for this film. It is performed by a small ensemble consisting of mostly solo trumpet, acoustic guitar, English horn, tympani, and percussion. There are no strings or other "big orchestra" elements. And the themes are decidedly non-Western, tending to the classical and baroque.

According to modern sources, Terror in a Texas Town (1958) was made in 10 days for $80,000. By incorporating 10 to 20 scenes into one shot and covering it in various angles and points-of-view, economical director Joseph H. Lewis pulled off the feat with tremendous aplomb.

Sterling Hayden drinks the liquor called Aquavit. Years later in The Long Goodbye (1973) he'd prefer the same drink.

While screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was famously blacklisted (writing this in secret), it's untrue that Nedrick Young was blacklisted, or considered a "subversive" since he has a slew of credits during the 1950's.