Upon realizing that his initial cut was over four hours long, Marcel Pagnol decided to split the film into two. However distributor Gaumont was against the idea and Pagnol eventually conceded, leading the film to be released theatrically with a running time of around two hours, which Pagnol was very dissatisfied with. In March 1968, French TV presented a restoration of the original four hour version of the film, which is the way the film is exclusively seen now, usually split into two parts titled "Manon des Sources" and "Ugolin", as per Pagnol's original wishes.
Marcel Pagnol felt that this film was ruined by studio editing, so he reworked the story into not one novel, but two. Collectively known as "The Water of the Hills," they include not only a novelization of the script for this film, but also essentially a prequel entitled Jean de Florette. Both novels were later turned into massively successful films in the 1980s, Jean Florette (1986) and Manons Rache (1986).
Fransined was considered for the role of Ugolin. He later played the florist in the later two-film version, Jean Florette (1986) and Manons Rache (1986).
Cicadas would get so loud during filming due to the summer heat that Marcel Pagnol would often interrupt shooting and say they'd try again the next day. When crew members would tell him that it would cost the film a lot of money, Pagnol replied that it was his money.
The film was restored in 2021 by the Compagnie Méditerranéénne de Films, supervised by Nicolas Pagnol and Eric Vallée.