Lloyd Nolan was almost blinded when the glass splinters from a bullet that smashed a window hit him in the face. He was rushed to the hospital and a doctor carefully removed a shard of glass from the edge of his cornea.
The entire film unfolds from lead Robert Montgomery's point of view, thus creating a rarity in film: the principal character is only seen on-screen as a reflection in mirrors and windows, and as the narrator speaking directly to the audience.
The first-person camera technique used by Robert Montgomery is known as "subjective camera," and had not before been employed in this manner beyond the first few minutes of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," in 1931, by pioneering director Rouben Mamoulian. Raymond Chander didn't think the technique would work. After hearing that it was going to be utilized, from co-writer Steve Fisher, the author called the studio the next day to complain. It apparently was a contributing factor to Chandler's refusal to take a film credit.
This film was completed in mid-1946 and trade shown in Los Angeles, and reviewed in Weekly Variety in November 1946, and, in this sense, it's a 1946 production. Since it was not released theatrically until January 1947, IMDb and AFI use that date after the title, in order to comply with their own book of rules. Rumored to have been intended as a December 1946 release, which would have coincided with the Christmas-themed story background, MGM executives backed down at the last minute and delayed its release until January 1947 so as not to offend holiday season moviegoers, a high percentage of which included the so-called family trade. For the same reason, they tacked on the happy ending sequence, over the strenuous objections of both Montgomery and Totter.
Robert Montgomery's last MGM film. He had been under contract with the studio since 1929.