Did You Know?

Rodney Dangerfield reportedly appears as an extra in the racetrack fight scene.

Sterling Hayden was paid $40,000 for his lead role (Jack Palance and Victor Mature were both considered for the part). Stanley Kubrick took no fee as director of the film.

The film was shot in 24 days.

Stanley Kubrick delayed filming in order to wait until Marie Windsor was finished with another film, Swamp Women, Roger Corman's directorial debut.

Marie Windsor landed the part of Sherry Peatty after Kubrick saw her performance in The Narrow Margin.

The horse targeted for assassination was named Red Lightning, running in the seventh race, the $100,000 Added Landsdowne Stakes.

Frank Sinatra expressed interest in this project, but production rights were granted to Stanley Kubrick first.

Director Stanley Kubrick formed a production company with James B. Harris, Harris-Kubrick Pictures, before making this film. Kubrick and Harris bought the rights to the Lionel White pulp novel "The Snatch" for $10,000, but found out that the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) Code would not allow movies to be made about the kidnapping of children, the premise of White's potboiler. White subsequently swapped the rights to his novel "Clean Break" for "The Snatch" to get them out of the predicament. United Artists had considered buying "Clean Break" as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra. "The Snatch" later was made into The Night of the Following Day in the more permissive 1960s, when the MPPDA Code had been superseded by the ratings system.

Stanley Kubrick and producer James B. Harris first attempted to produce the movie around New York, where they lived, but after failing to find an East Coast racetrack that would allow the crime to be filmed there, they moved it to Bay Meadows, near San Francisco, which closed in 2008. Although named "Lansdowne" for the movie, "Bay Meadows" can be seen above the starting gate at the start of the race early in the film.

The narration was added at the studio's insistence. Stanley Kubrick hated the idea and thus makes much of the information that the narrator provides false or mistaken.

This was the first film on which Stanley Kubrick worked with a cinematographer. Lucien Ballard was hired because Kubrick was officially working on a film union production for the first time which prevented him from using himself as the cinematographer, as he had done in the past. The two often did not agree on camera and lighting matters.

Body Count: 8.

Stanley Kubrick:  [three-way]  Johnny Clay vs. George Peatty vs. Sherry Peatty.

Stanley Kubrick:  [faces]  George Peatty, when he finds out about his wife's dalliance.