Trivia

Before releasing The Great Gatsby (1974) in cinemas, Paramount Pictures suppressed the distribution of nitrate prints for The Great Gatsby (1926) and The Great Gatsby (1949) to deter theaters from playing those earlier versions instead of their upcoming 1974 version. This decision led to prints for both films being lost. In 2012, a print of the 1949 version was rediscovered. The 1926 version is still lost.

Actor Howard Da Silva, who portrays car mechanic George Wilson, later appeared in The Great Gatsby (1974) as the gangster Meyer Wolfsheim. In the 1950s, Da Silva became one of hundreds of artists blacklisted in the entertainment industry during the House Committee on Unamerican Activities (HUAC) investigation into alleged Communist influence in the industry.

The original director was John Farrow. He was replaced with Elliott Nugent as he and producer Richard Maibaum could not agree on the casting of Daisy Buchanan. Farrow wanted to cast Gene Tierney whereas Maibaum favored Betty Field. Twenty-five years later, Farrow's daughter Mia Farrow played Daisy in The Great Gatsby (1974) .

Following a popular revival of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel during World War II, Paramount Pictures announced a new film version in mid-1946 with the script to be written by Richard Maibaum and Cyril Hume. However, censor Eric Johnston of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) refused to permit any new motion pictures depicting the licentious Jazz Age. "The Johnston Office seems to be afraid of starting a new jazz cycle," Maibaum complained to the press in 1946. Nearly half-a-decade passed before the censors allowed the film to begin production. To appease the censors, the film's screenplay removed any objectionable elements and added moralizing touches which greatly diverged from Fitzgerald's novel.

During the opening scene in the graveyard, a characters mentions "Flaming Youth." This is a reference to F. Scott Fitzgerald's essay "Echoes of the Jazz Age" in which he asserts that Flaming Youth (1923) was the only film that captured the sexual revolution of the Jazz Age. When this film was made in 1949, the 1923 film was still extant. It is now lost.