- Barbara Stanwyck was originally sought for the role of Jewel Mayhew which eventually went to Mary Astor. It was to be Astor's last film.
- Mary Astor's last film.
- Joan Crawford took sick and was hospitalized as filming began so scenes were shot around her, but when it became evident that she would have to be replaced, her role was offered to Katharine Hepburn and Vivien Leigh. Hepburn didn't return the studio's call, while Leigh declined, saying, "No, thank you. I can just about stand looking at Joan Crawford's face at six o'clock in the morning, but not Bette Davis." Eventually, Robert Aldrich flew to Switzerland and it took him four days to convince Olivia de Havilland to step in.
- When Miriam Deering (Olivia de Havilland) is preparing to close up the house in anticipation of moving out, she is packing a box which is stenciled "Sam Strangis Storage & Transfer, Baton Rouge, LA.". Sam Strangis was the assistant director on this picture.
- Loretta Young was also offered the role of Miriam when Joan Crawford became ill but turned it down cold, she felt the role was totally wrong for her, saying "I don't believe in horror stories for women and I wouldn't play a part like that if I were starving."
- Until his death in 1959, Joan Crawford had been married to Alfred Steele, the president of Pepsi-Cola. In an effort to spite her co-star, Bette Davis had a Coca-Cola vending machine installed on the set and gleefully posed for publicity photographs enjoying the beverage.
- Song lyrics heard over the opening titles: "Chop chop, sweet Charlotte / Chop chop till he's dead / Chop chop, sweet Charlotte / Chop off his hand and head / To meet your lover you ran chop chop / Now everyone understands / Just why you went to meet your love chop chop / To chop off his head and hand."
- Although she was replaced by Olivia de Havilland midway through production, Joan Crawford (then on the Pepsi board of directors) was notorious for demanding that product placement shots of her company's soft drink appear in all her pictures of that era. Perhaps to spite her, there's a shot of a rival Cola-Cola truck barreling through town just before Miriam sees Jewel Mayhew on the street.
- Weather and travel delays, as well as Joan Crawford's departure, forced director Robert Aldrich to cease location filming and move to a $200,000 replica of Houmas House at Fox Studio's Soundstage 6.
- When the taxi pulls up with cousin Miriam inside and stops at the foot of the steps, if you look closely before Miriam gets out you can just for a split moment see it is fact Joan Crawford in the back and not Olivia de Havilland. You can't see Crawford's face but you can tell it's her by the black dress and dark sunglasses that she is wearing. When de Haviland as Miriam is seen in the taxi before she arrives she is wearing a white hat and her clothing is light colored.
- The painting of young Charlotte is of Bette Davis in her role as Julie in Jezebel (1938).
- When Joan Crawford was still part of the production and the cast and crew were filming in Baton Rouge, in the first sequence (Miriam's arrival) there was no dialogue involved. Joan was to arrive at the mansion in a cab, then exit, carry a small case, pay the driver, and lowering her sunglasses, look up at the balcony of the house where Bette, in pigtails and a nightgown, was standing in the shadows, holding a shot gun. The scene was designed to be photographed in a wide continuous shot, and, thanks to Crawford's proficient technical skill, it was completed in one take. Later that evening, when publicist Harry Mines called on Bette in her motel bungalow, he found her standing in the middle of the room practicing Joan's scene. "My God!" said Bette. "I've been here all evening long with a pair of dark glasses and some luggage and I'm imagining getting out of a cab and trying to do that whole business in one gesture. How did she do it?"
- Joan Crawford had it in her contract that her trailer be placed so many yards from Bette Davis. The trailer was set up at the back of the house, with her own golf cart to take her back and forth when filming.
- Bette Davis was publicly derisive of Joan Crawford's extensive location wardrobe. "For a goddamn week in Baton Rouge, she brought twenty pieces of luggage. It was a black-and-white movie but she had color-coordinated outfits for the daytime scenes, and for the night shots all of her evening dresses were chiffon, which meant that the wardrobe lady had to spend hours ironing them in the one-hundred-degree weather."
- Bette Davis' trailer was parked at the front of the mansion but she was seldom there. She set up a huge mirror in the hallway of the house and she put on her makeup there. At lunchtime she had her meals outside, with the director and the grips.
- On the last day of shooting in Louisiana, after some late-afternoon shots, Joan Crawford was relaxing in her trailer, on hand if needed for additional scenes. She apparently dozed off, because when she woke up it was dark. When she sent her maid to check when shooting would be completed, she found the place empty. The crew had packed up and left, leaving Joan at the rear of the house, in her trailer, with no transportation back to the motel.
- At one point, when Joan Crawford had returned from being in the hospital, Bette Davis announced, during a scene between Crawford and Joseph Cotten, that she wanted some lines eliminated. "I am cutting some dialogue," said Bette, wielding a large red pencil and excising large chunks of dialogue from Joan's scene. "Miriam doesn't need them, and you, Mr. Cotten, I hope you don't mind. These lines hold me up." Joan, abandoning her professionalism, turned on her heel and went to her dressing room and was soon back in the hospital.
- Eventually, director Robert Aldrich informed Joan Crawford that he wanted her examined by the company's insurance doctor. Resenting his suspicions and the harassment, Joan said she was returning to her dressing room and would no longer talk directly to the director. "The only way they communicated was through me," said Crawford's makeup man, Monty Westmore. "Joan would tell me something, then I'd go and tell Aldrich. He would give me a reply to take back to Joan. It was an unpleasant, awkward position for me to be in."
- The first horror film to receive at least 7 Academy Award nominations.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
- SPOILER: The film was shot at Houmas House Plantation and Gardens, outside the towns of Darrow and Burnside, Louisiana (just south of Baton Rouge). The home and grounds are open to tours, and the tour guide points out several bits of trivia pertaining to the film on the tour, including the bedroom where Bette Davis slept while filming and the spot where her character pushes the potted vase onto Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotten.
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