Director Vincent Sherman met with John Huston just before Huston left the project to join the United States Army Signal Corps to shoot documentaries for the war effort.
The two directors conferred just before they were about to shoot the scene in which Leland is trapped in the movie theatre and three assassins are trying to kill him.
"How does he get out?" Sherman asked. Huston replied, "That's your problem! I'm off to the war!"
John Huston then went off to join the war effort before the film was finished, taking the film script with him, explaining "Bogie will know how to get out." The studio's solution to the problem was to discard Huston's footage of the impossible dilemma and write a new scenario. Vincent Sherman directed the final scenes.
The two directors conferred just before they were about to shoot the scene in which Leland is trapped in the movie theatre and three assassins are trying to kill him.
"How does he get out?" Sherman asked. Huston replied, "That's your problem! I'm off to the war!"
John Huston then went off to join the war effort before the film was finished, taking the film script with him, explaining "Bogie will know how to get out." The studio's solution to the problem was to discard Huston's footage of the impossible dilemma and write a new scenario. Vincent Sherman directed the final scenes.
Much of the action takes place on board a Japanese freighter named the "Genoa Maru." There was a real Japanese cargo ship by the same name which was torpedoed and sunk by the United States Navy submarine USS Finback (SS-230) on Friday 11 June 1943. Search the web for more information on the real ship.
The last-minute screenplay change from Pearl Harbor to the Panama Canal was not implausible. Until the mid 1930s, US military exercises concentrated on defending the Panama Canal from air, amphibious, and small craft attack and were extensively covered by the press.
As the passengers debark in New York, there is a prominent shot of the Great White Fleet's head house. This was a real shipping company. It was, and is, the popular name of the United Fruit Company's shipping line. The title "Great White Fleet," in fact, derived from the name given the United States Navy's main battle fleet which circumnavigated the globe in 1907-08. Painted white, the battle fleet must have been an impressive sight. The United Fruit Company's fleet also was painted white in order to help reflect the intense heat whilst operating in the tropics.
The shipping company portrayed in the film is a real firm, still in business, the Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (Japan Mail Shipping Line), or NYK Line. It is part of the Mitsubishi Group and was founded in 1870. The Genoa Maru was an actual NYK Line ship.