Both Ann Sheridan and Polan Banks sued Howard Hughes for not respecting the contract clauses when he replaced Sheridan with Ava Gardner on loan from MGM.
Although gossip columnists had hoped to report that Robert Mitchum and Ava Gardner had a torrid affair on the movie set, they had to settle for Mitchum and Gardner confessing that they were only good friends. Mitchum jokingly called her "Honest Ava -because she doesn't have to pad her bust", and she confessed to an attraction to the Oscar®-nominated actor in her 1990 autobiography Ava: My Story, stating, "Let me make a frank admission: if I could have gotten him into bed, I would have. I think that every girl who ever worked with Bob fell in love with him, and I was no exception." A more recent biography, Robert Mitchum: Baby, I Don't Care by Lee Server however, states that Mitchum and Gardner did indeed have an intense sexual affair. "Mitchum would tell friends that Ava got serious fast. She told him they should go away together; he should leave his family and keep house with her. He told her she'd have to ask Dorothy [his wife] about that. And she claimed that she did. Ava said she phoned the house, said, 'You've had him for ten years. Give somebody else a chance.' 'What does Bob say?' 'He said to ask you.' 'Okay, so you asked me. The answer is no.'"
The box office failure of the film involved $700,000 loss for RKO.
This film was a test of the public's acceptance of Robert Mitchum's own recent past: the actor had been jailed briefly on marijuana charges in 1949. Studio chiefs and theater owners were anxious about how Mitchum would be received by fans, but they shouldn't have worried. The prison stint seemed to accentuate Mitchum's bad-boy persona, and swooning and screaming women greeted the actor at his appearances to promote the movie. "While Ava Gardner is receiving a wonderful reception, all bedlam breaks loose when Mitchum appears on stage. He had to take five encores at the first show," one theater manager wrote to Howard Hughes.