This was Clifton Webb's final film and one of only two of his sound films in which he appeared without his trademark mustache. The other was For Heaven's Sake (1950).
Director Leo McCarey disliked working on this picture so much that he left it five days before it was supposed to wrap. His assistant, David W. Orton, finished shooting the picture.
This film made for an unhappy end to the directing career of Leo McCarey. He made no bones about his intense dislike for both leading men of the film, William Holden and Clifton Webb, and later claimed that working on the film (which was an expensive box-office failure and the recipient of several of the worst reviews of McCarey's career) had so depressed him that he never wanted to make a film again - and didn't.
This film used several locations that had already been used in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) as simulations of China. They were actually located in the Snowdonia mountain region of Wales.
Jack Cardiff made an uncredited directorial contribution.