the production of the movie was very troubled. peckinpah was often drunk on the set, and was supposedly so abusive towards the cast that heston had to threaten him with a cavalry saber in order to calm him down: he even charged peckinpah on horseback at one point, leading the director to panic and order the camera crane he was working on to be raised fast. peckinpah also fired a large number of crew members for very trivial reasons throughout the shoot. columbia studio executives feared that the project was out of control, and that peckinpah was too unstable to finish the picture, so they cut the shooting schedule of the film by several weeks. heston gave up his entire salary for the film in order to keep peckinpah on the project – a gesture rarely equaled in hollywood history. the studio, however, forced peckinpah to wrap up shooting very abruptly. heston alleged that peckinpah, towards the end of the shoot, simply became drunk and wandered off the set, and that he (heston) had to finish directing many portions of the movie himself.