Tennessee Williams was so dismayed by the film made from his play he threatened to have his name taken off the credits.
This film is remembered for being one of the most troubled productions ever. The biggest problem was that filming started without a finished script, which meant constant rewrites. In an interview years later, Natalie Wood recalled that the actors would often make up dialog on the spot because the scripted dialog was often unusable.
After several years toiling on Roger Corman's low budget B features, this marks writer Francis Ford Coppola's transition to Hollywood features.