In an exchange which had Warner Bros. loaning to RKO the services of Joan Leslie for The Sky's the Limit (1943) and John Garfield for The Fallen Sparrow (1943), Warners acquired the production rights to W. Somerset Maugham's classic novel, which RKO already had adapted to the screen in 1934, featuring memorable performances by Bette Davis and Leslie Howard.
London-born Ida Lupino had been director Edmund Goulding's choice for the role of Mildred. Reportedly, Lupino refused as she wished to focus her career on American roles: she would once more play a British woman on-screen in Escape Me Never (1947) in which the female co-lead was Goulding's eventual Mildred - Eleanor Parker. One of Parker's prior cinematic credits to ''Of Human Bondage'' was as female lead in The Very Thought of You (1944) - a role Parker inherited from Lupino, whose casting was nixed for health issues.
Filmed between mid-July and late October 1944, the picture was held back until its Manhattan premiere at the Strand Theatre on July 5, 1946, followed by the wide release on July 20.
The trailer on the main page is for the 1964 version of this story.
Eleanor Parker's first A-movie starring role had been as Paul Henreid's leading lady in Between Two Worlds (1944).
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