Mildred Dunnock - who here cameos as herself - had met Patricia Neal in 1946 when Neal made her Broadway debut starring in the Lillian Hellman play ''Another Part of the Forest'', with Dunnock playing her mother. Dunnock was a co-star in Missione in Manciuria (1965), the movie Neal was filming at the time of her crippling brain aneurysms.
Dirk Bogarde was only 5'8", yet portrayed Roald Dahl who was 6'6".