Production notes
Gun the Man Down remains arguably most notable for containing actress Angie Dickinson's first starring (credited) role. She would go on to star in successful films such as Rio Bravo opposite John Wayne and Dean Martin, Ocean's Eleven with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, Captain Newman, M.D. opposite Gregory Peck, The Killers (in which she is slapped in the face by villain Ronald Reagan) and Point Blank , both opposite Lee Marvin, and The Chase with Marlon Brando and Robert Redford.
James Arness was recommended by Gun the Man Down uncredited producer John Wayne for the role of Marshal Matt Dillon in the television version of Gunsmoke , a part Arness played for the next twenty years. Wayne introduced the series in a film clip shown immediately before the initial episode while dressed in cowboy garb and speaking directly to the camera. Arness had earlier portrayed the Frankenstein-like "carrot monster" glimpsed in flashes and the conclusion of Howard Hawks' 1951 version of The Thing . Arness, possibly on his way to becoming a fixture in science fiction films, also starred in the 1954 giant ant movie Them! in his natural blonde hair. Arness' brother was actor Peter Graves. Except for a gag cameo in the Bob Hope comedy Alias Jesse James , it was his final theatrical film before devoting himself exclusively to television.
Andrew V. McLaglen, the film's director, was the son of actor and former boxer Victor McLaglen, and went on to direct ninety-six episodes of Gunsmoke starring James Arness, as well as five movies starring John Wayne, among many others. Gun the Man Down also remains notable for being the first of many westerns McLaglen directed.
This was also the second screenplay by Burt Kennedy, who became a prolific writer of westerns, particularly those directed by Budd Boetticher, before becoming a director himself in the 1960s.
Rio Bravo is a 1959 American Western film directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson, Walter Brennan, and Ward Bond. Written by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett, based on the short story "Rio Bravo" by B. H. McCampbell, the film stars Wayne as a Texan sheriff who arrests the brother of a powerful local rancher for murder and then has to hold the man in jail until a U.S. Marshal can arrive. With the help of a lame old man, a drunk and a young gunfighter, they hold off the rancher's gang. Rio Bravo was filmed on location at Old Tucson Studios outside Tucson, Arizona, in Technicolor.
Angie Dickinson is an American retired actress. She began her career on television, appearing in many anthology series during the 1950s, before gaining her breakthrough role in Gun the Man Down (1956) with James Arness and the Western film Rio Bravo (1959) with John Wayne and Dean Martin, for which she received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year.
Ken Curtis was an American actor and singer best known for his role as Festus Haggen on the CBS western television series Gunsmoke. He appeared on Gunsmoke earlier in other roles. His first appearance as Festus was in season 8, episode 13, "Us Haggens", which debuted December 8, 1962. His next appearance was Season 9, episode 2, October 5, 1963, as Kyle Kelly, in "Lover Boy". Curtis joined the cast of Gunsmoke permanently as Festus in "Prairie Wolfer", season 9 episode 16, which debuted January 18, 1964. The episode often is confused with a 1969 episode of the same title made five years later (S13E10).
George Glenn Strange was an American actor who appeared in hundreds of Western films. He played Sam Noonan, the bartender on CBS's Gunsmoke television series, and was Frankenstein's monster in three Universal films during the 1940s.
James Arness was an American actor, best known for portraying Marshal Matt Dillon for 20 years in the CBS television series Gunsmoke. Arness has the distinction of having played the role of Dillon in five decades: 1955 to 1975 in the weekly series, then in Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge (1987) and four more made-for-television Gunsmoke films in the 1990s. In Europe, Arness reached cult status for his role as Zeb Macahan in the Western series How the West Was Won. He was the older brother of actor Peter Graves.
Theodore Childress "Chill" Wills was an American actor and a singer in the Avalon Boys quartet.
Henry George Carey Jr. was an American actor. He appeared in more than 90 films, including several John Ford Westerns, as well as numerous television series.
Lane Chandler was an American actor specializing mainly in Westerns.
Andrew Victor McLaglen was a British-born American film and television director, known for Westerns and adventure films, often starring John Wayne or James Stewart.
Eugene Barton Evans was an American actor who appeared in numerous television series, television films, and feature films between 1947 and 1989.
Kenneth Jesse Tobey was an extremely prolific American actor who performed in hundreds of productions during a career that spanned more than half a century, including his role as the star of the 1957-1960 Desilu Productions TV series Whirlybirds.
Claude Aubrey Akins was a Cherokee-American character actor with a long career on stage, screen, and television. He was best known as Sheriff Lobo on the 1979–1981 television series B. J. and the Bear, and later The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, a spin-off series.
Chisum is a 1970 American Western film directed by Andrew McLaglen, starring John Wayne in the title role, and adapted for the screen by Andrew J. Fenady from his short story "Chisum and the Lincoln County War." The supporting cast features Forrest Tucker, Christopher George, Ben Johnson, Glenn Corbett, Andrew Prine, Bruce Cabot, Patric Knowles, Richard Jaeckel, Lynda Day George, Pedro Armendariz Jr., John Agar, John Mitchum, Ray Teal, Christopher Mitchum and Hank Worden with Geoffrey Deuel and Pamela McMyler receiving "introducing" credits. The picture was filmed in Panavision and Technicolor.
Leo Vincent Gordon was an American character actor and screenwriter. During more than 40 years in film and television he was most frequently cast as a supporting actor playing brutish bad guys but occasionally played more sympathetic roles just as effectively.
Burton Raphael Kennedy was an American screenwriter and director known mainly for directing Westerns. Budd Boetticher called him "the best Western writer ever."
Peter Paul Fix was an American film and television character actor who was best known for his work in Westerns. Fix appeared in more than 100 movies and dozens of television shows over a 56-year career between 1925 and 1981. Fix portrayed Marshal Micah Torrance, opposite Chuck Connors's character in The Rifleman from 1958 to 1963. He later appeared with Connors in the 1966 Western film Ride Beyond Vengeance.
John Smith was an American actor whose career primarily focused on westerns. He had his leading roles in two NBC western television series, Cimarron City and Laramie.
The Last Challenge is a 1967 American Western in Panavision, produced and directed by Richard Thorpe. The film starred Glenn Ford and Angie Dickinson and centered around a town sheriff contending with his reputation as the "fastest gun in the West." It is also known under the titles of Pistolero and The Pistolero of Red River.
Tension at Table Rock is a 1956 American Western drama film directed by Charles Marquis Warren and starring Richard Egan and Dorothy Malone. Wes Tancred is publicly vilified after killing a famous gunslinger who was a public hero. The same year this film was made Richard Egan would star in another western: Love Me Tender. That film would mark Elvis Presley's film debut. Despite Richard Egan being first billed in that movie, people went to see it mainly because of Presley, but at the same time would discover how good an actor Egan was and he would become a known actor.
Gunsmoke: The Long Ride is a 1993 American Western television film based on the series Gunsmoke, in which the main character, Matt Dillon is again played by James Arness.
