In his autobiography, Sir Christopher Lee claimed that Director Robert Siodmak changed the original screenplay: "The script started life as serious, nay solemn, but Robert Siodmak, the director, with all the sure touch of real tension behind him in The Killers (1946) and The Spiral Staircase (1946), took stock of the material in forty-eight hours and turned it into a comedy."
Because of cost overruns on this movie and His Majesty O'Keefe (1954), Warner Brothers insisted that future movies from Burt Lancaster be limited to $900,000. Lancaster's response was to strike a new deal with United Artists.
Cost overruns ballooned the original 1.1 million dollar budget to 1.85 million dollars.
Burt Lancaster, a trained circus acrobat in his youth, performed his own stunts.