The final feature film for superstar Claudette Colbert. Her previous film was Le Rendez-vous de 4 heures (1955) and she would not appear again on any screen, large or small, until the mini-series The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987).
The tobacco being grown in this film is called Connecticut Shade tobacco. First planted around 1900, at its height over 20,000 acres were planted. As of 2018, around 2,000 acres are being cultivated yearly. The leaf is highly prized by premium cigar makers for use as the outer layer, or wrapper, for their products.
Coincidentally, at the time of this film's production in 1960, there was an epidemic of blue mold that destroyed one third of the tobacco crop, costing millions.
The ferryboat shown at the beginning of the film, the Seldon III, was built in 1949. As of October 2018 it is still in operation.
Joshua Logan originally wanted Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh to play the parents, and he tested Warren Beatty and Jane Fonda, among others, for the younger characters.