On this day 66 years ago, John Wayne’s ambitious Western hit theaters carrying a massive $12 million price tag, and it quickly turned into a financial headache for the studio. The big-budget bet on the Duke’s star power didn’t pay off the way Hollywood had hoped. Wayne, already a box office giant, found that even his name couldn’t guarantee a return on such an expensive production. The story remains a classic cautionary tale about how even legends can lose money on a costly gamble.