The film was shot in South Africa. Since the country was ruled by strict apartheid (enforced racial separation) laws, Sidney Poitier and Canada Lee and Producer and Director Zoltan Korda cooked up a scheme where they told the South African immigration authorities that Poitier and Lee were not actors, but were Korda's indentured servants; otherwise, the two black actors and the white Director would not have been allowed to associate with each other while they were in the country.
At about eighteen minutes into the movie, the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (a.k.a. Wemoweh and Mbube) is sung behind the dialogue. Its use is possibly the earliest mass release version ever of the song, predating The Weavers release of Wemoweh by at least a year.
Original author Alan Paton was a strong opponent of apartheid. His book saw him put under house arrest and his passport removed in his native country. Sadly Paton died before the fall of apartheid in South Africa.
The last film of Canada Lee, and the only one in which he played the lead role. He fell ill with hypertension towards the end of production in London and died of a heart attack the following year.
The blacklisted Screenwriter John Howard Lawson was not given an on-screen credit until after his death.