Vivien Leigh was originally cast as Ruth. Her mental illness began affecting things during filming, and she was replaced by Dame Elizabeth Taylor. Many long shots and shots from behind are still of Leigh.
This movie is similar to Sir Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940). In this movie, a young woman marries a rich man, moves into his estate, and the husband and servants are still very taken with the legacy of the man's dead father, so much that it stifles the wife's existence. In "Rebecca" (1940), it's the husband's dead wife (the title character) with whom the new wife must contend. In both movies, she's mainly badgered by the head servant, both very dedicated to the deceased.
Dana Andrews' character is named Dick Carver, but goes solely by Carver. In real life, Dana's full name is Carver Dana Andrews.
This movie is very similar to what would become one of Dame Elizabeth Taylor's most well-known movies two years later, Gigante (1956). Both are about a down-to-earth young lady who marries a millionaire, moves into his many-acre estate where he makes his living, and he's at first close-minded until she helps him change. She doesn't get along with the lead man-servant, who runs the house and feels as if she gets in the way, like the husband's sister in Giant. Also, she's nice to the local natives, which is frowned upon; she eventually gets them medical care. Meanwhile, there's a man in the middle who likes her, and he works for the husband. In that, Dana Andrews is the forerunner to Jett Rink (James Dean), only more contented to be an employee.
When viewing Elephant Walk (1954) on television or DVD, one can see extraneous pictorial information on the top and bottom of the screen. This is because the film was Paramount Pictures' first production filmed in a 1.37:1 aspect ratio for an intended 1.85:1 theatrical presentation. From this point forward, all Paramount pictures would either be shot in this fashion, or actually photographed in a widescreen process. Elephant Walk (1954) can be viewed in its intended widescreen format by setting 16:9 TVs to the Zoom 2 picture size.