Trivia

Shelley Winters developed mixed feeling toward producer and director George Stevens for making her look so unglamorous alongside Dame Elizabeth Taylor. Her role, moreover, typecast her in mousy or brassy parts for years. Winters said she drove white Cadillac convertibles (similar to Taylor's in this movie) for years afterward to compensate for her intense feelings of inferiority while making this movie.

The scene in which Dame Elizabeth Taylor faints was said to have been the best faint ever executed by an actress. Her unconcerned attitude with the health of her own body and the force in which she falls on her ribs and face is able to make any audience wince.

In her autobiography, Shelley Winters described producer and director George Stevens' way of working: "He would discuss the scene, but not the lines, and would photograph the second or third rehearsal so the scene had an almost improvisatory quality. Stevens would print the first take, then spend the next three hours minutely rehearsing the scene, then film it again. He explained to me that in this way he often got actors' unplanned reactions that were spontaneous and human and often exactly right. And often when actors overintellectualize or plan their reactions, they aren't as good."

In the scene where Montgomery Clift and Dame Elizabeth Taylor are gaily zooming around the lake in a speedboat, producer and director George Stevens wanted the engine to sound more ominous. Recordings of German Stuka dive bombers were used.

Dame Elizabeth Taylor's "white lilac" gown became a fashion sensation and sold many copies and patterns.

With this movie, Dame Elizabeth Taylor found herself in the most demanding role of her career. George Stevens asked much of her in take after take, but Taylor appreciated the challenge. She was quoted as saying, "He (Stevens) didn't make me feel like a puppet. He was an insinuating director. He gave indications of what he wanted but didn't tell you specifically what to do or how to move. He would just say, 'No, stop. That's not quite right,' and make you get it from your insides and do it again until it was the way he wanted it." Stevens saw what Taylor was up against: "If she thought I was more severe than needed, she'd spit fire. But the following morning she had forgotten it completely. She had enormous beauty, but she wasn't charmed by it. It was there. It was a handicap and she discouraged people being overly impressed with it. She was seventeen, and she had been an actress all of her life. The only thing was to prod her a bit into realizing her dramatic potential."

The novel contains a scene in which Alice Tripp goes to a country doctor and tentatively asks about an abortion. Shelley Winters relates in her autobiography that George Stevens initially planned to drop the scene because "it's rather censorable, but I think if we handle it delicately, it will illuminate the factory girl's terrible plight." Winters was given the new script pages one morning and asked to memorize the lines; Stevens planned to rehearse once, then immediately film the scene for spontaneity. "When he called, 'Action!' I was already crying," Winters wrote. "I twisted my white handkerchief into a shredded ball. The scene was nine minutes long. A full camera load. Boy, did I ever act!" Stevens had Winters do the scene again after letting her realize that tears would only frighten the doctor, and that Alice must try and refrain from crying. "Of course, when we saw the two takes the next day, the one in which I followed his exact direction was remarkable, even if I say so myself. Every time I've seen that scene in a theater, every man in the audience groans and every woman weeps. George had taught me another life-long acting lesson: don't indulge yourself. Make the audience weep."

Charlie Chaplin considered this "the greatest movie ever made about America."

George Stevens often referred to Technicolor as having an "Oh what a beautiful morning" quality to it, something completely inappropriate to the tone of this movie, which is why it was made in black-and-white.

George Stevens was also a firm believer in running rushes at night, and having the actors and actresses in attendance. As Shelley Winters said, "Stevens would print several takes of each scene and then explain to us why one was better than the other. The whole experience was a joy."

Montgomery Clift showed up for the shoot with his drama coach, Mira Rostova. This did not cause friction on the set because George Stevens simply barred Rostova from the premises, so Clift had to consult with her well out of Stevens' sight. Clift kept up such intensity as George, he would find himself drenched in sweat at the end of a scene. He told Taylor that "that's the worst part about acting, your body doesn't know you're acting. It sweats and makes adrenalin just as though your emotions were real."

A George Stevens set was typically a very quiet set, so that the actors and actresses could concentrate and not be distracted. Even the technicians and crewmen tried to move equipment, sets, and lights as silently as possible.

In 1991, this movie was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Anne Revere, who played Montgomery Clift's mother, was only eleven years older than him.

Although George Eastman's leather jacket might seem to suggest that he is a World War II veteran of the Army Air Corps, it is in fact a police officer's jacket, as shown by the two grommets on the left side for pinning on a badge.

In the opening credits, as George waits at the side of the road for a ride, he's actually passed by Angela's car, as you can tell by the distinctive horn.

The part of Alice Tripp, played by Shelley Winters, was originally meant for Audrey Totter. However, she was under contract to MGM at the time and the studio wouldn't loan her out.

Included amongst the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the Top 100 Greatest American Movies.

Anne Revere played George Eastman's (Montgomery Clift's) mother in this movie. She played Dame Elizabeth Taylor's mother in National Velvet (1944).

The first of three George Stevens movies in which Shelley Winters appeared. The others are The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). She received Oscar nominations for this movie and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the latter.

The characters' names were changed from those of the novel and from the previous movie version of it.

In the French dubbed version, the actors and actresses were dubbed by: Michel André (Montgomery Clift); Micheline Cévennes (Dame Elizabeth Taylor); Claire Guibert (Shelley Winters); Marie Francey (Anne Revere); Serge Lhorca (Keefe Brasselle); Richard Francoeur (Fred Clark; Jean Martinelli (Raymond Burr); Jean Mauclair (Herbert Heyes); Christian Argentin (Shepperd Strudwick); Lita Recio (Frieda Inescort); Lucienne Givry (Kathryn Givney), Maurice Dorléac (Walter Sande), Émile Drain (Ted de Corsia), Maurice Pierrat (John Ridgely), Raymonde Reynard (Lois Chartrand), and Roland Ménard (Paul Frees).

Based upon the true story of Chester Gillette, who murdered his pregnant girlfriend in 1906. He was tried, convicted, and executed in 1908. The ghost of the actual victim, Grace Brown, is said to haunt the lake where she drowned, in upstate New York.

In the event somebody looks at the stunts section for this movie and sees that Helen Thurston and Polly Burson doubled for Shelley Winters, both women did. In the drowning scene, Helen started out when she fell into the lake. She fell ill and Polly was called in to finish the scene. Helen came back later and completed the long-shot sequences of the scene.

The policeman that stops Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) for speeding, with George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) at her side, tells her: "I'd hate to someday be finding myself picking up the pieces of a pretty girl like you." Ironically, it would be Clift's pieces which would be picked up seven years later when he suffered a traffic accident after a party at the home of Taylor, and it would be Taylor at the scene of the accident picking up his pieces.