Henry Fonda, who had a deferment, enlisted in the U.S. Navy immediately upon completing filming for this movie. When he was a child, Henry Fonda's father took him to the Omaha town square to show him the results of a lynching the night before. When young Henry asked what this had to do with them, the elder Fonda replied "Lynching is the business of any man who's around." Fonda made sure that this line (or a slight reworking of it) was inserted into the script.