This film was shot in the latter part of 1947 but shelved by RKO boss Howard Hughes and released in 1949. When Bobby Driscoll got his Juvenile Oscar in 1950, he was 13 years old.
When Howard Hughes bought RKO, this was one of the studio's finished films he declared to be "not worth releasing". As a result, it was shelved for nearly two years. When it was released in 1949, it turned out to be one of RKO's bigger hits, grossing several times what it had cost and earning Bobby Driscoll, who was ten years old when it was filmed, a special Academy Juvenile Award.
In the 1950 Academy Awards, Bobby Driscoll won an Academy Juvenile Award in response to his work in this film as well as Disney's tearjerker, Si cher à mon cœur (1948). The Juvenile Oscar is "a Special Honorary Academy Award bestowed at the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to specifically recognize juvenile performers under the age of eighteen for their 'outstanding contribution[s] to screen entertainment.'"
According to author and film noir historian Eddie Muller, this was the first film noir production to shoot nearly entirely on location in New York City. It was completed before, but released after, the more famous La cité sans voiles (1948).
Based on the short story "The Boy Cried Murder" by Cornell Woolrich published in Mystery Book Magazine (March 1947).