Several scenes with the Bridge children as toddlers and grade schoolers were shot, but were left on the cutting room floor, except for a few excerpts that appeared as home movies prior to the opening-credits roll. Joanne Woodward, who was 59 years old at the time of filming, told the Feb 1991 Interview magazine that the decision to leave those scenes out was made because she "didn't look young enough to have those young children."
Budget was estimated at $7.5 million, with $500,000 immediately earmarked on interest payments for loans, it was considered a very modest budget, but it also granted producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory the freedom to make the film as they wished. The entire crew took very low salaries while Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward both took much lower salaries than to which they were accustomed.
Since Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990) covered almost a 20-year span of time in the house, set designers and dressers had one set of decorations for scenes set in the 1930s, and another for scenes set in the 1940s, as the novel noted that Mrs. Bridge redecorated the house in 1939. The film also shot in Ottawa, Canada, and Paris, France.
The costume designer Carol Ramsey also had to borrow the production's entire wardrobe, including $4,000 worth of sashes, merit badges, hand-carved neckerchief slides and Boy Scout pins from 1938 for Douglas Bridge's Eagle Scout ceremony.
With the exception of a scene in Paris and another which took advantage of a Toronto snowfall, Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990) was shot entirely in Kansas City, Missouri, on the same streets that writer Connell would have traveled as a child and teenager. No sound stages were used as real houses, auditoriums and office buildings were all used as sets. The residence used as the Bridge home is just a block west of Loose Park on W. 54th St. There's also a scene set in the vault of the old First National Bank; now the Central Library, the same vault has been re-purposed as the Stanley H. Durwood Film Vault. Much of the film was shot out of sequence as a way of saving money. For example, when they filmed the law office of Mr. Bridge over one single morning, they changed the furniture and Paul Newman's makeup and clothes every hour as the scenes jumped through the spring of 1932, the fall of 1938, the winter of 1945, and the summer of 1938. Budget constraints also prevented the art department from renting their set dressings, forcing them to rely on loans and donations.