Trivia

Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna got married in September 1957, after the January 1957 release of this film. Travers plays the role of poet Robert Browning, Elizabeth's love interest, and McKenna plays Henrietta, Elizabeth's younger sister.

MGM originally considered Grace Kelly for the lead role, but she was on suspension at MGM and was replaced by Jennifer Jones. For Jones, playing the role of Barrett on film was the realization of a long-standing dream from her days as a drama student, when she had persuaded husband-to-be Robert Walker to play Robert Browning to her Elizabeth in a scene from Rudolph Besier's play for their audition for readmission to a dramatic academy. Her idea worked, and both were invited back.

Edward Barrett promptly disinherited all three of the Barrett children (Elizabeth, Henrietta and Alfred) who married during his lifetime. The movie depicts Edward as being a selfish heartless man, and he may well have been, but part of his motivation was Victorian standards of the era. Social standards required him to support his daughters, to the level at which they'd become accustomed, while single or married should their spouses be financially incapable of doing so. The financial burden that four daughters could place upon him is hard to imagine.

Edward Barrett omitted Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Henrietta and Alfred from his will as they had married against his wishes. Charles John, the eldest living male issue, received the Jamaican properties and family portraits. The other five living children - Arabel, George, Henry, Septimus and Octavius - received equal shares of the English estate, which came to a total of £63,695 12 shillings 1¼ pence. Charles John, not concurring with his father, chose to give £5,000 to each of his disinherited sisters from his own inheritance. Alfred was given a like sum from the English estate. For reference, the average wage for a cook/valet/coachman in 1830 England was £50 to £80 per year.

Was an expensive financial failure. According to MGM records, it earned $330,000 in the U.S. and Canada, and $725,000 in other countries, resulting in a loss of $1,897,000.