Lena believes the hill is a dome above a large pool of oil and runs a "wild cat" drilling operation, but her derrick has yet to yield anything.

One night during a downpour, Walter C. Hellman, a retired US Army captain employed by Pan Oklahoma as a fixer, arrives and demands Lena sell her tract to the company.

The next day, Hellman returns with Henry H. Wilcox, the son of Pan Oklahoma's owner, and a larger group of men, threatening to "besiege" Lena's property unless she agrees to sell.

As the siege stretches on, Mason is forced to sneak into the Pan Oklahoma camp to steal food and drink, earning Lena's gratitude.

Against Lena's wishes, Cleon climbs the derrick to replace the cable, wearing a metal plate on his back as protection from Hellman's gunmen.

Filming from September to November 1972, the temperature went from 110 degrees to so cold the actors had to put ice cubes in their mouths to keep their breath from showing up on screen (the movie supposedly took place during the summer).

In the Chicago Sun-Times, film critic Roger Ebert wrote:We have seen this relationship many times in the movies, most memorably in The African Queen.

Class barriers fall as the sun sets and romantic music swells... [Stanley] Kramer, to give him his due, has handled the ending on a restrained note that seems just right; we don't get slow-motion shots of lovers running across a meadow (or an oil field) into each other's arms.