Hunter's acting career was at its peak. William Wellman used him again in a war film, "Lafayette Escadrille" (1958). Columbia Pictures borrowed him for a Western, "Gunman's Walk" (1958). "When Gunman's Walk premiered the following summer, it was one of the proudest moments of my career." Hunter starred in the musical film "Damn Yankees" (1958), in which he played Joe Hardy of Washington, D.C.'s American League baseball club. The film had originally been a Broadway musical, but Hunter was the only one in the film version who had not appeared in the original cast. The show was based on the best-selling 1954 book "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant" by Douglass Wallop. Hunter later said the filming was hellish because director George Abbott was only interested in recreating the stage version word for word. He also starred in "They Came to Cordura" (1959) (with Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth) and "That Kind of Woman" (1959) (with Sophia Loren).