Jack Nicholson did not like the fact that Marlon Brando used cue cards while filming. In their scenes together, Nicholson broke his concentration every time Brando shifted his gaze to the cue card behind the cameraman.
Marlon Brando's performance in this film was mostly improvised. Director Arthur Penn eventually gave up on him, and decided to just let him act whatever way he wanted.
The title refers to the film's main setting, the rugged north-central Montana region, where the Missouri River is said to have "breaks", cutting into the land, due to the rough rising of the river.
In an interview in TIME Magazine, published on May 24, 1976, it was reported that Marlon Brando "changed the entire flavor of his character, a bounty hunter called Robert E. Lee Clayton, by inventing a deadly hand weapon resembling both a harpoon and a mace that he uses to kill." Brando said, "I always wondered why in the history of lethal weapons, no one invented that particular one. It appealed to me because I used to be very expert at knife throwing."
Jack Nicholson once said of co-star Marlon Brando appearing in this movie, "The ground quaked for weeks before he arrived." Nicholson added that Brando was "exceedingly cooperative" and "gentle as a lamb."
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