All the cast members had compliments for Rock Hudson. He made a particular impression on Robert Stack, who definitely had the flashier part, while, as Hudson himself noted about his own role, "as usual, I am so pure I am impossible." Hudson, of course, was the star, and one of the top actors at the studio, while Stack was a lesser name on loan to Universal for the picture. "Almost any other actor I know in the business...would have gone up to the head of the studio and said, 'Hey, look, man, I'm the star - you cut this guy down or something,'" Stack said. "But he never did. I never forgot that."
Despite Rock Hudson's pleasant camaraderie with everyone on the set and his apparent happiness in his marriage, Dorothy Malone said she found him to be somewhat of a loner who hid his feelings of sadness and insecurity. Nevertheless, she developed a bond with him that helped her through moments of tension on the set. "Rock gave me that sense of security whenever I worked with him."
German film scholar Thomas Elsaesser summed up the plot memorably as : "Dorothy Malone wants Rock Hudson who wants Lauren Bacall who wants Robert Stack who just wants to die."
Humphrey Bogart was unimpressed by the film and advised his wife Lauren Bacall not to make another like it. In a 2000 interview with Mark Cousins, Bacall called it "a masterpiece of suds", and claimed to have only made the film to work with Rock Hudson.
According to Dorothy Malone, Rock Hudson helped her with her performance. "I loved Sirk as a director," she said, "but there was one day he just couldn't get through to me." Quietly and patiently, Hudson took Malone aside and, because he had so much experience with Douglas Sirk already, was able to make her understand what the director was trying to tell her.