50 Fun Facts About Shane

Which actor, picked from a studio contract list in three minutes, played the gunfighter Shane?

Alan Ladd took the role despite disliking guns, and the scene where Shane shows Joey how to shoot needed 116 takes.

Which actor played Wilson, the hired gunfighter in Shane, despite being nervous around horses?

Jack Palance struggled so much with mounting that the director reused his one flawless dismount, running it in reverse to get him into the saddle.

Which superhero film shows its heroes watching Shane and ends with the Western's farewell speech?

Logan closes with a child reciting Shane's parting words to Joey as a eulogy over the hero's grave.

Which Clint Eastwood Western about a stranger defending gold prospectors borrows heavily from Shane?

Pale Rider swaps the cattle baron for a mining boss and the gunfighter for a stranger in a clerical collar known only as Preacher.

Which jazz singer took Billy Crystal as a boy to see Shane, the first film he saw in a theater?

Billie Holiday was a family friend and his babysitter, and he recalls reacting emotionally to the final scene.

In which territory do the homesteaders of Shane fight a ruthless cattle baron for their land?

Wyoming Territory in 1889 is the setting, and the story echoes a real conflict there between wealthy ranchers and poor settlers.

Which 1991 comedy finally won an Oscar for the actor who played Shane's hired gunfighter Wilson?

City Slickers brought the win almost 40 years after his nomination for Shane, this time for playing the cowboy Curly.

What did the director of Shane fire a large-caliber weapon into to make gunshots boom like cannon?

A garbage can gave the shots their roar, because he wanted audiences to feel the horrors of violence.

Which singer beat both of Shane's nominees to the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor?

Frank Sinatra won for playing Private Angelo Maggio in a war drama, so the Western's villain and its child star both went home empty-handed.

Which star of screwball comedies made her final film, and her only one in color, as Marian in Shane?

Jean Arthur had not made a film in five years and took the part at the request of the director, who had guided her to her only Oscar nomination.

Which director made Shane between A Place in the Sun and Giant, later called his American Trilogy?

George Stevens spent fifteen months editing Shane and ran so far over budget that the studio considered selling the film to a rival.

Which child actor earned an Oscar nomination as Joey, the boy who admires the gunfighter in Shane?

Brandon deWilde had made his Broadway debut at seven, and during the farewell scene he pulled faces to make the star laugh.

Which Oscar winner for Johnny Eager plays Joe Starrett, the homesteader who hires Shane?

Van Heflin got the part only after the director's first choice proved unavailable, and later starred in the Western 3:10 to Yuma.

Which star of A Place in the Sun was the director's first choice for the title role in Shane?

Montgomery Clift proved unavailable, so the part went to a contract player the director picked from a studio list.

Which Stalag 17 Oscar winner was first choice to play Joe Starrett in Shane but proved unavailable?

William Holden won his Oscar for Stalag 17 at the same ceremony where Shane, nominated for the top prize, took home a single award.

Which studio released Shane and used it to debut a wider screen shape meant to outdo television?

Paramount chose Shane because its long and medium shots would survive having the frame cropped to the new 1.66:1 shape.

Which author wrote the novel Shane before ever travelling farther west than Cleveland, Ohio?

Jack Schaefer was a newspaperman who began writing fiction after hours to calm down, and his first novel went on to sell over 12 million copies.

Which Pulitzer-winning author of The Way West wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Shane?

A. B. Guthrie Jr. won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1950, then worked for a time in Hollywood, where he also scripted The Kentuckian.

Which mountain range looms in the near distance behind the homesteads in many shots of Shane?

The Tetons tower over Jackson Hole, where the town and homestead sets were built for the film and demolished afterwards.

Which real range war between cattlemen and homesteaders inspired the novel and film Shane?

The Johnson County War of 1889 to 1893 is never named on screen, though it also served as the background for The Virginian.

Which 1980 Western, one of the biggest box-office bombs ever, drew on the range war behind Shane?

Heaven's Gate is loosely based on the same clash between cattlemen and settlers, which Shane draws on without ever naming it.

Which John Wayne film tops the American Film Institute's list of Westerns, where Shane ranks third?

The Searchers leads the ten-film list, with High Noon second and Shane placed just ahead of Unforgiven.

Shane was chosen in 1993 for preservation in which US collection of culturally significant movies?

The National Film Registry is selected by the Library of Congress, which picks works it judges culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.

Shane was nominated for picture, director and screenplay Oscars but won only in which category?

Cinematography for a color film went to Loyal Griggs, in a year when every major winner was shot in black and white.

Which Fred Zinnemann drama beat Shane to Best Picture and won eight Oscars in one night?

From Here to Eternity matched the record of eight awards set by Gone with the Wind.

Which color process, praised by reviewers of the day, captured the mountain landscapes of Shane?

Technicolor landscape photography was singled out when Shane opened, and the critic Bosley Crowther likened the film to a mobile painting of the frontier.

What did the director of Shane rig to two actors so that gunshots jerked them violently backward?

Hidden wires yanked the two shooting victims off their feet, an effect one film historian called the start of graphic violence in Westerns.

Which director of The Wild Bunch said things started to change with a killing in Shane?

Sam Peckinpah traced the shift in screen violence to the moment the hired gun shoots a homesteader dead outside the saloon.

Which Maltese Falcon actor plays Torrey, the homesteader shot dead outside the saloon in Shane?

Elisha Cook Jr. was so typecast as weaklings and losers that his characters were usually strangled, poisoned or shot.

What Civil War nickname does the hot-tempered ex-Confederate homesteader Torrey go by in Shane?

Stonewall Torrey is taunted into drawing by the hired gun, and at his funeral the settlers come close to giving up the valley.

Which 1971 drama won an Oscar for the rodeo champion who plays the cowhand Calloway in Shane?

The Last Picture Show won Ben Johnson the supporting actor award as Sam the Lion, though he said he was prouder of his rodeo world title than anything else.

Which actress, later Grandma on The Waltons, plays the homesteader's wife Mrs. Torrey in Shane?

Ellen Corby won three Emmy Awards for playing Esther Walton, a role she first took in a 1971 television film.

Which actor, later Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction, plays the homesteader Fred Lewis in Shane?

Edgar Buchanan appeared in all 222 episodes of Petticoat Junction, the only member of the cast to do so.

Which character actor plays the cattle baron who brings a hired killer into the valley in Shane?

Emile Meyer also played the corrupt cop Harry Kello in Sweet Smell of Success and the priest Father Dupree in Paths of Glory.

Which cattle baron hires the gunfighter Wilson to drive the settlers out of the valley in the film Shane?

Rufus Ryker is the film's name for the rancher, who is called Luke Fletcher in the original novel.

Which actor played the title role in the short-lived 1966 ABC television series based on Shane?

David Carradine's Shane worked as a hired hand for a widow, her son and her father-in-law, a reshuffle of the film's family.

What does Shane order in the saloon for Joey, prompting one of the cattle baron's men to taunt him?

Soda pop earns Shane a drink thrown over him, but he ignores the insult and walks out without a fight.

What job does the drifter Shane accept from the homesteader Joe Starrett at the start of the film?

Farmhand work hides the truth about Shane, who turns out to be a skilled gunfighter with a mysterious past.

What is Joey Starrett called in the original novel Shane, where the boy narrates the whole story?

Bob Starrett tells the story himself in the novel, and the film keeps to the boy's point of view.

In which pulp magazine was the story of Shane first serialized in 1946, as a three-part tale?

Argosy ran it under a different title, after an editor nearly sent back the badly typed, single-spaced manuscript unread.

In the novel Shane, what do Shane and Joe Starrett bond over uprooting in a famous early scene?

A tree stump brings the two men together, though the scene was missing when the story first ran as a magazine serial.

How does Shane stop Joe Starrett from riding to the saloon meeting that is really an ambush?

Shane knocks him unconscious, then rides to town alone, with Joey following on foot to watch the showdown.

Which comedy director put Shane on his 2001 list of great American films, calling it a masterpiece?

Woody Allen ranked it alongside The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Double Indemnity, saying it could hold its own with any film in any genre.

Which Pink Floyd member's 1984 solo debut has a title song that mentions Shane by name?

Roger Waters called the album The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, and its recording also weaves in audio from the film.

In which country did a court rule in 2006 that Shane had passed into the public domain there?

Japan had lengthened film copyright from 50 to 70 years, but the court held that the change did not reach back to films from 1953 or earlier.

In which 1998 action thriller do the two leads argue over whether Shane dies at the end?

The Negotiator has one lead insist that Shane died, while the other argues that slumping in the saddle only means he was shot.

Which British pop singer released a song called Shane as the B-side of her single Chequered Love?

Kim Wilde's song was written by her brother Ricky and her father Marty, and deals with their impressions of the film.

Which 1987 post-apocalyptic Patrick Swayze film was noted for closely following the plot of Shane?

Steel Dawn turns the wandering stranger into a swordsman crossing a desert after a third world war.

Which future Miss Hathaway of The Beverly Hillbillies has a small part as Mrs. Howells in Shane?

Nancy Kulp also turned up in Sabrina and A Star Is Born before her breakout role as the bird-watching Jane Hathaway.

Which composer scored Shane, writing a theme called The Call of the Faraway Hills for the Western?

Victor Young's theme was later reused for the television series based on the film.