The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw hours of Westerns per week, and Walsh felt that a spoof of the genre would be a good choice for the studio, especially with the new CinemaScope process to properly display the desolate background of a lawless town in the American West. Fox decided to make the film and decided to give Walsh majority of the control over the movie's production. The studio still wanted Clifton Webb to play Jonathan Tibbs, the lead character, but Walsh preferred British actor Kenneth More. Moore had become popular in films such as "Genevieve" (1953) and "The Admirable Crichton" (1957), and Walsh felt he
The Admirable Crichton an island, where a secretary, Arnold, becomes the natural leader of the group. The contemporary critic Arthur Bingham Walkley, however, viewed the connection as merely a rumour: "I feel quite indifferent as to its accuracy of fact". Act One is set in Loam Hall, the household of Lord Loam, a British peer, Crichton being his butler. Loam considers the class divisions in British society to be artificial. He promotes his views during tea-parties where servants mingle with his aristocratic guests, to the embarrassment of all. Crichton particularly disapproves, considering the class system to be "the natural outcome of a civilised