Rat Pack cohort Sammy Davis, Jr. was originally slated to play McQueen's role, but Sinatra yanked it away after Davis mildly criticized Sinatra during a radio interview. McQueen was mainly noted at the time for the television series "" and the horror movie "The Blob". "Never So Few" marked his introduction to working with director John Sturges, who went on to cast McQueen in his breakout role the following year, as second lead in "The Magnificent Seven", and later as the motorcycle-jumping lead in the classic "The Great Escape".