Canada Lee was set to star as Bigger Thomas (He had shot to fame in Orson Welles's Broadway production of Native Son.), but he was stuck in limbo with South African customs agents during the filming of Cry, the Beloved Country (1951), not to mention his failing health eventually caused Lee to back out of the project.
During the play's 1941 Broadway run, MGM offered Richard Wright $25,000 (over $421,000 in 2021) for the film rights, but on the condition it have an all-white cast. He turned them down. Independent producer Harold Hecht also made Wright a similar offer, but only if Bigger was "an oppressed minority white man", such as Polish or Italian. Wright turned this down, too. From 1941 to 1946, Wright wrote three versions of a screenplay and pitched them to all the major Hollywood studios. After being rejected so many times, Wright moved to Paris after World War II ended. There he met director Pierre Chenal and they tried to obtain film production permits in France and Italy, but to no success. Both countries did not want to upset their dependent relationship with the U.S. (via the Marshall Plan) by producing a film critical of race relations in that country. So, both moved to Argentina where Chenal had made films during the war after fleeing occupied France.
The film, in restored form, was first aired on Turner Classic Movies on Sunday, February 21, 2021. At least one scene still evidenced significant damage (the one being where Mary and Jan are seen drinking from a bottle of whiskey while Bigger is driving them away from the nightclub), but most of the print was quite watchable for such a rare film. The telecast bore the Kino Lorber name, so perhaps there will be a Blu-ray or DVD release from Kino someday.
Restored by the Library of Congress from a 16mm print found in Argentina and an "international version" from an abandoned nitrate film vault in Puerto Rico.