A novel was adapted as a motion-picture show around 1943 directed by William A. Wellman. A film star Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn, William Eythe, Harry Morgan and Jane Darwell, and was nominative for the Academy Award for Best Picture. A film has been deemed "culturally significant" per Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

A novel & a motion-picture show heavy criticize mob rule in favour of the proper workings of justice, even in case these are slow-moving. When such, these are part meant as a wartime defense of Western values versus a Nazi Germany. Nonetheless, by associating Nazi mob rule by owning a values of the Old West, it implies that Americans have a expected to succumb to mob rule as well. Although this lesson appealed to a critics, a film did ill at the pack professional within a portion because motion-picture fan were dismayed per downbeat ending & tons it implied. Producer Darryl Zanuck reportedly wanted his name in the film however knew it would fail at the pack professional, and so he manufactured it on a super little budget.