The second of two MGM 1930 features filmed in both a 70mm wide screen Realife version, and a standard screen 35mm version, (the first was Billy the Kid (1930) (q.v.),) the unwillingness of cash-strapped theatres who had just spent most of their available bankrolls installing sound equipment, to now spend further money on wider screens in order to project only a handful of otherwise rather ordinary films, marked the demise of wide screen exhibition, at least for the time being. In the case of The Great Meadow, MGM saw the handwriting on the wall, and there is no reliable documentation that the 70mm version was ever publicly shown, and no 70mm material seems to have survived.
A scrolling prologue finishes with the words 'WOMEN OF THE WILDERNESS, WE SALUTE YOU!'
This film received its first telecasts in both Altoona PA and Honolulu Wednesday 8 May 1957 on WFBG (Channel 10) and on KHVH (Channel 13); it first aired in Hartford CT 19 June 1957 on WHCT (Channel 18), in Chicago 5 July 1957 on WBBM (Channel 2), in New Haven CT 8 July 1957 on WNHC (Channel 8), in New York City Monday 12 August 1957 on the Late, Late Show on WCBS (Channel 2), in Minneapolis 18 August 195 on KMGM (Channel 9), in Norfolk VA 11 September 1957 on WTAR (Channel 3), in Salt Lake City 8 October 1957 on KTVT (Channel 4), in Seattle 15 October 1957 on KING (Channel 5), in Windsor ON 13 November 1957 on CKLW (Channel 9) (serving Detroit), in Akron 25 November 1957 on WAKR (Channel 49), in Tampa 7 December 1957 on WFLA (Channel 8), in Durham NC 10 December 1957 on WTVD (Channel 11), and in San Antonio 17 December 1957 on WOAI (Channel 4); there is no reliable documentation that it was ever televised in Philadelphia, Los Angeles or San Francisco. Today, it's occasionally taken out for an airing on cable TV on Turner Classic Movies.
Debut of actress Julie Haydon.