had to work around her as much as possible. Despite frequent disagreements with Rubin, Preminger completed the film on September 29, on schedule and within the budget. The film was one of the first films to use a blood squib to simulate realistic bullet impact. This occurs when Harry (Rory Calhoun) is shot dead in the film's climax. As such, the film beats Run of the Arrow (1957) – which is often credited with being the first to use blood squibs – by three years. This movie was the first to be filmed in CinemaScope in Canada. River of No Return was the first film released by 20th Century-Fox to feature the "CinemaScope extension" fanfare before the opening credits. Written by Alfred Newman, it's a rerecording of his original 1933 fanfare, with the extra few bars that play under the credit "20th Century-Fox presents A CinemaScope Production". After Fox switched to Panavision in 1967, they went back to their old fanfare, so the extension fanfare wasn't used again until it was revived by George Lucas to play before the opening credits to Star Wars. This time, those few extra bars played under the credit " A Lucasfilm Production". Since then it's been re-recorded a few times but remains to this day the intro to every film released by that studio. Veteran circus animal trainer Pat Anthony stood-in for Robert Mitchum's character for the cougar attack scene. Post-production During post-production, Preminger departed for Europe, leaving editor Louis R. Loeffler and Rubin to complete the film. Jean Negulesco was called in to film a few retakes. The dailies reconfirmed Rubin's belief that Preminger had been the wrong choice for the project. He felt the director had failed to capture the Western aura, had ignored key elements in the plot, and had perfunctorily directed action sequences, leaving them looking staged and static. In several cases, studio and location shots didn't match. Preminger's experience on the film convinced him he never wanted to work as a studio employee again, and he paid Fox $150,000 to cancel the remainder of his contract. In later years, Monroe claimed River of No Return was her worst film, and Preminger spoke bitterly about her in numerous interviews. It wasn't until January 1980, when being interviewed for the New York Daily News, that he conceded, "She tried very hard, and when people try hard, you can't be mad at