Delmer Lawrence Daves (July 24, 1904 – August 17, 1977) was an American screenwriter, film director and film producer. He worked in many genres, including film noir and warfare, but he is best known for his western movies, especially Broken Arrow (1950), The Last Wagon (1956), 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and The Hanging Tree (1959). He was forced to work on studio-based films only after heart trouble in 1959 but one of these, A Summer Place, was nevertheless a huge commercial success.