Trivia

Sir Rex Harrison thoroughly enjoyed co-starring with Irene Dunne. He thought her "an excellent actress" and was pleased that she had the confidence to follow her own instincts. He recalled, "She too went her own way and tactfully used the director, as I later learned to do myself, to her own advantage; she listened to what he had to give, and discarded it or used it, as she wished."

While most of the Caucasian actors and actresses playing Asians in this movie wore dark make-up, Gale Sondergaard was allergic to the make-up being used. Instead, through several weeks of cautious sunbathing, she acquired a deep enough tan to compensate.

In a scene early in this movie, Anna (Irene Dunne) is seen walking through an open-air market. While this scene was being filmed, an airplane passed over the set, creating a low hum on the soundtrack. Composer Bernard Herrmann was instructed to compose an accompanying score that would obscure the airplane engine. He used low gongs.

Like Anna and the King (1999), this movie was banned in Thailand because of what the Thai government said were historical inaccuracies about the King of Siam.

The music and dancers seen during the formal dinner party are not Siamese, but Balinese. The music is in the style known as "gong kebyar," not yet known in the 1860s, but developed later in Bali.