Based on a specially commissioned screenplay, The San Siado Killings, written by Peter R. Newman and directed by Michael Carreras, the film is credited as the first traditional Spaghetti Western.

The film was noticeably set apart from previous "classic" American westerns starring an American leading cast (Richard Basehart, Don Taylor and Alex Nicol) and Spanish actors in supporting roles (José Manuel Martín, Paquita Rico, María Granada, Fernando Rey and José Nieto) as well as its unique use of the deserts, palm trees, agaves and whitewashed villages of southern Spain.

Producer José Gutiérrez Maesso, later writer of The Ugly Ones, Django and The Hellbenders, had noted the advantages of the area's desert landscape after visiting Almeria during the late 1950s.

Successfully organizing a collaboration between Capricorn and the Madrid-based production companies Tecisa and CEA Studios, he also gained financial backing from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer which recognized the vastly reduced cost of filming in the area.

[4] Savage Guns would be Taylor's last starring role in a feature film while Richard Basehart would find work as a television actor, best known as Admiral Harriman Nelson in the 1960s science fiction series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Other former cast members also made frequent cameo appearances including: The majority of the filming took place in Almería during late 1961 being released in Spain in November and the following year, then throughout the rest of Europe in early 1962.

[8] Absent from the film were the distinctive soundtracks used in future Spaghetti Westerns, made popular by such composers as Francesco DeMasi, Bruno Nicolai and Ennio Morricone.

Carreras' use of the Spanish desert landscape was utilized not only by later Spaghetti Western directors such as Sergio Leone, but also used by major Hollywood studios including Lawrence of Arabia, Patton and Cleopatra.