In interviews, Sir Alfred Hitchcock said that an RKO executive ordered that all scenes in which Cary Grant appeared menacing be excised from the movie. When the cutting was completed, the movie ran only fifty-five minutes. The scenes were later restored, Hitchcock said, because he shot each piece of film so that there was only one way to edit them together properly. This is a technique called 'in-camera editing', a trick Hitchcock had already employed a year before during filming of Rebecca (1940), to prevent producer David O. Selznick from interfering with the final cut of the movie.
Joan Fontaine's performance in this movie is the only Oscar-winning performance that Sir Alfred Hitchcock directed. She was the last surviving credited cast member when she died in 2013.
Joan Fontaine liked the character of Lina in the novel "Before the Fact" by Anthony Berkeley (pen name Francis Iles) so much that she sent Sir Alfred Hitchcock a note after she read it offering to play the part for free, if necessary.
Originally, this movie was intended as a B movie to star George Sanders and Anne Shirley, but when Sir Alfred Hitchcock became involved, the budget increased, and Sir Laurence Olivier and Frances Dee were engaged to star.
According to movie historian Felicia Feaster, Cary Grant's frustration with Sir Alfred Hitchcock stemmed from Hitchcock's attentive behavior toward leading lady, Joan Fontaine. Grant felt that Hitchcock gave Fontaine preferential treatment to the detriment of his character. This behavior led to a lifelong bitter relationship between Grant and Fontaine, exacerbated by Fontaine's Academy Award success and Grant's perceived snub for this movie.
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