McQ

Originally intended as a vehicle for Steve McQueen. It was heavily rewritten for John Wayne.

When the film was previewed in January 1974, John Wayne was being treated for pneumonia in London. He became seriously ill after appearing on Parkinson: Episode #3.20 (1974) and John Wayne and Glen Campbell & the Musical West (1974), which had both been recorded a few days earlier. The illness was considered life-threatening as Wayne was 66 and only had one lung, and he had COPD in his remaining lung. He began coughing so hard that he damaged a valve in his heart, although this would not be diagnosed until early in 1978.

John Wayne formally separated from his third wife, Pilar Wayne, during filming, although they had not lived together since 1967, and never divorced before Wayne's death in 1979.

John Wayne was 66 (born in 1907) when he played a cop for the first time. Eddie Albert was 67 (born in 1906). Wayne and Albert also costarred in The Longest Day (1962) together twelve years earlier, where they both portrayed United States Army colonels participating in the World War II D-Day invasion. They were both felt to be too old for their characters in both films.

The climactic chase scene and shootout on the beach were filmed on the Quinault Indian Reservation in Washington. For unit production manager Michael S. Glick, negotiating with the tribe to get the necessary permits to film on their land was successful, but was made tense by comments John Wayne had previously made in a May 1971 "Playboy" magazine interview. When asked if he felt any empathy with American Indians, who had played an important role in making his westerns, he replied, "I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them, if that's what you're asking. Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."