He was the original director who started production on Death of a Gunfighter (1969) and completed 25 days of shooting of 34 total shooting days. He left the production due to creative and personality differences between himself and the film's male lead, Richard Widmark. Totten was replaced for the final shooting days by Don Siegel, who refused to have his name credited on screen when another director had produced most of the footage, which ended up in the final cut. Widmark did not want his name appearing in the credits of any film directed by Totten, so a compromise was reached in which the two directors together were jointly credited under the name of Allen Smithee, a fictitious creation of the Director's Guild of America (DGA), which had been created a few years before, for use on two unrelated television productions. This film was the first time the Smithee fiction was allowed to be used in a feature film, thereby setting a precedent for anytime a director did not wish for his/her name to appear in the credits, for whatever reason.