Laurence Olivier found himself becoming increasingly annoyed with director William Wyler's exhausting style of filmmaking. After yet another take, he is said to have exclaimed, "For God's sake, I did it sitting down. I did it with a smile. I did it with a smirk. I did it scratching my ear. I did it with my back to the camera. How do you want me to do it?" Wyler's retort was, "I want it better." However, Olivier later said these multiple takes helped him learn to succeed as a movie actor.
Producer Samuel Goldwyn felt that script was too dark for a romance movie, so he asked several people to do a rewrite on the script, including a young John Huston, who said that the script needed no rewrite; it was perfect as it was.
The movie only depicts sixteen of the novel's thirty-four chapters and is set in the nineteenth century instead of 1771-1801.
Vivien Leigh wanted to play the lead role, alongside her then lover and future husband Laurence Olivier, but studio executives decided the role should go to Merle Oberon. They offered Leigh the part of Isabella Linton, but she declined, and Geraldine Fitzgerald was cast.
Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier apparently detested each other. Legend has it that when director William Wyler yelled "Cut!" after a particularly romantic scene, Oberon shouted back to Wyler about Olivier, "Tell him to stop spitting at me!"