At one point, Johnny says, "I'm a stranger here myself." This was Nicholas Ray's own personal motto, a recurring theme in his movies, and reportedly the working title for just about every movie he directed.
In an interview in the Criterion Collection release of Die Rechnung ging nicht auf (1956), Sterling Hayden stated that he did not care for this film. "They put string, like you get at the grocery store, over my guitar in case I accidentally hit them," he said, acknowledging that "I can't play guitar, and can't sing a good-goddamn either." "I was at war on that film, during the daytime, with Joan Crawford," he recalled, "and at night with my second wife." Despite his reservations about the film, Hayden acknowledged its popularity.
In scenes where the horses rode near a waterfall, they were fitted with blinders. The animals were so afraid of the waterfall that they wouldn't go near it without the blinders on.
Joan Crawford insisted on her closeups only being filmed in the studio, where the lighting could be rigidly controlled. No closeups of her were shot while on location.
Nicholas Ray was quite unhappy during the filming and later admitted, "Quite a few times, I would have to stop the car and vomit before I got to work in the morning." And his unpleasant memories of the production were only reinforced by the mostly negative reviews the film received from American critics when it opened.