John Ford was asked by a film historian why he changed the historical details of the famous gunfight if, as he claimed, the real Wyatt Earp had told him all about it on a movie set back in the 1920s. "Did you like the film?" Ford asked, to which the scholar replied it was one of his favorites. "What more do you want?" Ford snapped.
The cantankerous Walter Brennan disliked John Ford so much that he never worked with him again. One time when Brennan was having trouble getting into the saddle, Ford yelled, "Can't you even mount a horse?" Brennan shot back, "No, but I got three Oscars for acting!"
Walter Brennan, John Ireland, and Grant Withers were required to do their own riding and shooting in the scene where the clan rides into town during a dust storm. John Ford used a powerful wind machine and told the actors to fire their guns close to the horses' ears to make them ride wild.
Nights on location were very peaceful and quiet in this remote area of Utah. The only sound that could be heard most evenings, as on many other John Ford pictures, was the accordion music played by Danny Borzage, the musician brother of director Frank Borzage and a Ford favorite.
Tombstone, Arizona, is not located in Monument Valley. John Ford placed it there because Monument Valley is where he liked to film his Westerns.