Quiz

The original Broadway production of "Libel", produced in 1935, was directed by Otto Preminger, years before he made his Hollywood debut as a movie director.

The extreme brevity of Robert Shaw's performance as a journalist is very puzzling - Shaw was not yet a film star when he made this film, but he had had several prominent supporting roles in well-known films and had starred in a popular TV series and in several plays. The letters of Sir Dirk Bogarde hint that Shaw had been drunk when he turned up for filming and that it had "taken all day" to get even the very brief appearance that remains in the film out of him. This suggests that he had had at least a slightly bigger role originally but that it had been , of necessity, cut.

This film barely broke even at the box office, earning MGM the paltry profit of $10,000 (about $105,000 in 2023) according to studio records.

Olivia de Havilland (Lady Margaret Lodden) gets first billing on the opening credits, but Sir Dirk Bogarde (Sir Mark Lodden) gets first billing on the closing credits.

John Mortimer claimed to have done a great deal of re-writing on the final version of the screenplay, and also that he was relieved not to be credited when he finally saw this movie.