Trivia

There were 89 different sets built for the film, which had the longest shooting schedule for any film at the studio to that date. According to some news items, the film broke all previous studio box office records.

W. Somerset Maugham was hired to write a screenplay, which is still on file in studio records. It is uncertain how much of his version, if any, was used in the final script.

Tyrone Power got along well with Edmund Goulding. He later remarked that Goulding was his personal favorite even after Goulding made a strange request of him on the set. To capture the essence and mindset of Larry Darrell, the film's protagonist, Goulding asked Power not to have sexual relations until after the scenes with the Yogi in the east had been shot. Power happily agreed and later said, "I know by personal experience that in nothing are the wise men of India more dead right than in their contention that chastity intensely enhances the power of the spirit." Later, when Power found out Goulding asked this of all his leading men as a way of achieving a certain look, he broke into laughter.

While filming the hospital scene, Anne Baxter drew upon an experience from her childhood, when she lost her three-year-old brother. Speaking of it years later, she said the scene was the best in her career, and still gave her chills.

Anne Baxter had to leave the set for several weeks and when she returned found she felt like an outsider, everyone else having developed working relationships in her absence. She liked this and used it, since her character Sophie is also on the outs and not able to cope with the loss of her husband and child.