Before co-starring in this film, Michael Redgrave and Peter Cushing had each appeared in separate screen adaptations of George Orwell's 1949 novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four": Cushing played main character Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954), and Redgrave played O'Connor (known in the novel and other adaptations as "O'Brien") in 1984 (1956).
Director Joseph Losey departed the U.S. in the 1950s during the McCarthy era. This was his first European film to be released in his native country with his actual name credited as director, instead of that of a friend or a pseudonym.
Shot June 25-July 28 1956, copyright 1957. This was the last movie Peter Cushing made before gaining screen stardom in Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein (1957).
The prison gates featured in this movie are HMP Wandsworth in southwest London, Wandsworth, built in 1851 and still in use. It is the U.K.'s largest prison with a capacity of 1,665 prisoners. Wandsworth was the site of 135 executions, the last in September 1961.