Joseph Cotten was the first actor to be approached for the role of "Dr. Pearson", and, after he had dropped out, Richard Todd was briefly considered for the role. Michael Rennie had recently had prominent supporting roles in two big Twentieth Century Fox movies made in Europe - "The Black Rose" and "The House In The Square" - and the studio was hoping to build him into a Hollywood leading man. This was his first film in America.
Maureen O'Hara was approached about playing the part of "Cora", but it eventually went to someone much less well-known, Constance Smith, who had recently made her mark in a small supporting role in a Twentieth Century Fox film made in England, "The Mudlark".
Although publicity for the film claimed that it had been filmed entirely on location, there was some work done in a Canadian studio and some scenes were shot back in Hollywood at the Fox studios at Century City. However, it contained more location work than any previous Otto Preminger film and may have given the director the enthusiasm for location filming which was such a feature of his later work.
It was reported that Michael Rennie had been visited several times during Canadian location shooting by a glamorous American fashion model, Mary Gardner - but it was the film's director, Otto Preminger, who married Gardner, only a few months later. The marriage proved a stormy one, and, by the end of the 1950s, they were living separate lives. Gardner began divorce proceedings, claiming Preminger had had affairs with three women, whom she named. Preminger called these three "innocent victims" (one of them, however, became his third wife, Hope Bryce) and counter-claimed that Gardner had had a lengthy affair with Rennie. The actor denied this, saying Preminger was "clutching at straws" and seeking to minimize his divorce payments. He did admit that he had taken Gardner out a few times whilst Preminger was away making films. The marriage of the Premingers finally ended in 1960 - and Rennie's own marriage ended in divorce the same year.
Made on a budget of $1,075,000.
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