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The 1943 22-minute radio play written by Lucille Fletcher on which the film was based starred Agnes Moorehead as "Leona," first broadcast on the "Suspense" radio program (May 25, 1943). This had been inspired by an incident in Fletcher's own life when she encountered a shrill, quarrelsome woman waiting in line at her local pharmacy. Fletcher thought that this type of woman would make an interesting character, especially if she was placed in extreme danger. The show was so popular that it was re-broadcast every year for 10 years, and translated into 15 languages. Moorehead, who created the role of Leona in the original radio play, recorded her version of the play in 1952 and performed scenes from it in her one-woman show during the 1950s.
Agnes Moorehead, who created the role of Mrs. Stevenson on the radio, was offered a small role in the film. Insulted, she turned it down.
The jewel-clasped cigarette case Leona offers to Henry was Barbara Stanwyck's own. It was a birthday gift from Joan Crawford, one of her dearest friends.
Barbara Stanwyck found that sustaining that level of emotion all week long and then going home on the weekend was a draining experience. "Five days I was handling it, starting the next day's work where I'd picked up, sustaining it all, and then I had two whole days to relax and not to worry about the character, and I tell you it was strange," said Stanwyck. "It was really hard to pump myself up on Monday morning to try to feel that desperate tension."
Barbara Stanwyck claimed that the terror she played in the bedroom scenes is actually what made her hair begin to prematurely gray.
The enormous emerald-cut diamond engagement ring that Leona is wearing during much of the film is real and worth a fortune. It was loaned to the studio by Harry Winston Jewelers in Beverly Hills. Every night after filming had wrapped for the day, the ring was placed in the Paramount vault.
Anatole Litvak: Where Henry is having lunch with Sally, he asks his waiter if he knows who the gentleman is in the dark glasses at the table behind him. It is the director.