John Sturges had already moved on to his next film, The Scarlet Coat (1955), so Herman Hoffman took charge of filming the opening. The plan was to shoot the train hurtling toward the audience, almost like a 3-D movie, but it would have been deadly to attempt a helicopter maneuver into the path of a speeding locomotive. Stunt flier Paul Mantz offered the perfect solution: have the train running backwards, fly the copter over the retreating engine, then project the footage in reverse. "It's a helluva shot," Sturges later said, "but I didn't make it."
John Sturges had scheduled an entire day for the scene in which Macreedy tries to find out from Smith what happened to the Japanese farmer. Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan were so good, however, that shooting was completed by nine in the morning. An amazed Sturges called for a print and started to move on to another set-up, but Tracy stopped him, insisting the schedule called only for the one scene that day. "Bob, let's take off," he said to Ryan, and the two left the set, forcing Sturges to try to shoot around Tracy, who was in nearly every scene.
The projectionist's records have revealed that over the years this has become one of the most frequently shown films in The White House's screening room.
It was decided to build the town set and shoot on location at Lone Pine, California, one of the most-used locations for Westerns and other pictures throughout film history. The area, at the foot of Mt. Whitney on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevadas, was deemed suitable for its remoteness and the fact that it had an unused stretch of track that once connected it to Los Angeles. This was a must for the opening and closing sequences featuring the arrival and departure of the Streamliner.
According to Ernest Borgnine, the heat left everyone exhausted, "too damn hot to party", but Spencer Tracy invited everyone to his hotel room for cocktail hour every day, even though he drank only 7-Up. (The alcoholic actor usually abstained while working but often went on binges after a production wrapped.)