The first film version of the opera to use spoken dialogue between all the musical numbers rather than being sung all the way through. This is the way Bizet intended the opera to be performed; the dialogue was set to music by composer Ernest Guiraud after Bizet's death, in order to make the realism of the opera less shocking to a nineteenth century audience (based on the assumption that music made the realism less "painful".)
The re-release in Spain was only in 3 theaters: in Madrid (Conde Duque, Verdi) and Barcelona (Verdi). Was only projected 1 day in subtitled version.
George Cukor had planned to film this in 1959 with Sophia Loren.