The casting of Geraldine Page as the female lead was considered quite puzzling to many in Hollywood at the time. Though Hondo was not her first film, she had been known primarily as a Broadway stage actress and employed the Method acting style deemed by some to be too introspective for film, and especially for Westerns. However, she delivered a powerfully nuanced and original-feeling performance utterly appropriate to her character which later garnered her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, the first of only two acting nominations ever for a film shot or presented in 3D. (The award went to Donna Reed for From Here to Eternity.) Page, one of the cinema's most acclaimed actresses, would receive seven Academy Award nominations during her four-decade career before winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1986 for The Trip to Bountiful.
