Although Katy Jurado played Robert Wagner's mother in the film, she was only six years older than he was.
Stuntman Russell Saunders broke and did permanent damage to his arm falling fifty feet (15 meters) into a lake while doubling for Richard Widmark.
For the original screenplay, the film was inspired by another movie: House of Strangers (1949), written by Philip Yordan. However, this movie's screenplay was not written by Yordan, who eventually received the award for this latest film.