Trivia

Lana Turner and Fernando Lamas had recently costarred in The Merry Widow (1952). Attending a party one night, Turner was asked to dance by Lex Barker (whom she would later marry). This enraged Lamas who made an off-color remark and forcing Turner to leave the party. Returning home, they were involved in an argument which led to physical violence.

As Turner later wrote in her autobiography, "After I got him out of the house I was in such a condition that I dreaded being seen by anyone I knew. I drove immediately to Palm Springs, where I stayed for most of a week." Turner said: "I found Ricardo a delightful costar. A rigorously devout Catholic, utterly loyal to his wife, he played his role professionally but not privately."

Exteriors in which polo is being played were filmed at the former Pacific Palisades estate of humorist Will Rogers, whose widow left their house and polo grounds to the state of California. Before it became a state park, Rogers' ranch was often the setting for polo games played by Hollywood's best-known stars, among them Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone. According to a Hollywood Reporter news item, the polo scenes were shot on location at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.

Fernando Lamas and Michael Wilding originally were cast as the rivals for Lana Turner's character. However, Lamas was removed from the picture when his real-life romance with Turner ended acrimoniously. Wilding was suspended by MGM for declining the role of "Paul Chevron". In his autobiography, Wilding wrote, "I was classified as a rebel when I refused [the role] ... since I was determined not to start my Hollywood career by making a rubbishy film." John Lund won the role that originally had been offered to Wilding.

Ricardo Montalban's singing was dubbed by Carlos Ramírez. Singer Ruben Reyes recorded the song "Come to My Arms" as a voice double for Montalban, but this version was not used.

The difference in the way Ricardo Montalban's and Rita Moreno's characters are presented here speaks to Hollywood's attitude toward Latin actors at the time. While Montalban is cast as a "Latin lover" (in the tradition of Rudolph Valentino and Gilbert Roland), Moreno serves merely as a romantic rival for Lana Turner but is not considered worthy of being an object of desire herself. It would be nearly a decade longer, when Moreno won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for West Side Story (1961), before this inequity would finally be addressed.