This was the last movie produced by Rita Hayworth's production company, the Beckworth Company. Hayworth later called her "Dance of the Seven Veils" in this movie, "the most demanding of my entire career", and said it required "endless takes and retakes."
In 1951, director Cecil B. DeMille contacted Columbia Pictures studio head Harry Cohn about borrowing Rita Hayworth to star in a production of "Salome". Cohn essentially stole DeMille's idea, and made his own movie. He told screenwriter Jesse Lasky, Jr., "You have one weekend to come up with a story for this movie, or you're fired!" Over the weekend, Lasky wrote out a fifty-page treatment that became the basis for this movie. However, since Hayworth was a popular box office star, the original New Testament ending of this movie was re-written to make Salome more sympathetic, and less of a femme fatale.
Theatrical movie debut of noted British stage actor Alan Badel (John the Baptist). He had previously appeared only in a British short film, The Stranger Left No Card (1952), and in a small role in the comedy "Will Any Gentleman?".
Sir Cedric Hardwicke, who - despite prominent billing - has only a very small role as the Emperor Tiberius, was extremely scornful of this movie in his autobiography.
Rita Hayworth's father, Eduardo Cansino, a professional dancer, is in the film.