Paul Henreid's act of lighting two cigarettes at once caught the public's imagination, and he couldn't go anywhere without being accosted by women begging him to light cigarettes for them.
The movie's line "Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars." was voted as the #46 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
On-set observers reported that Bette Davis often seemed to be directing the film for Irving Rapper. Unlike others she had worked with, his approach to her was much more conciliatory. Rather than order her to play a scene a certain way, he would ask her to try his ideas to see if they would work for her.
Bette Davis had walked out of Warner Bros. before the making of this movie and refused to play Charlotte Vale. According to Ginger Rogers, she had been given the script to read as a replacement of Davis and was desperate to play Charlotte. Davis got wind of this and came back to the studio, playing the character that was originally intended for her. Rogers said that she "would have given anything to play Charlotte Vale - even if I did let Jack L. Warner beat me at tennis!"