Clark Gable did not get along with director John Ford during filming, and at one point walked off the set in protest at Ford's treatment of Ava Gardner. Ford also made several remarks about Gable's age and weathered appearance.
While Ava Gardner was shooting a scene with a baby elephant, the creature pushed her into a mud pool. She screamed for help, but John Ford motioned the crew to keep quiet and keep on filming. The scene proved to be one of the funniest in the movie.
Ava Gardner was pregnant at the start of filming, and as her pregnancy progressed she began to suffer greatly from the heat. Finally, she took a break in England, where she wound up in the hospital. Publicity flacks, who had not released news of her pregnancy, said she was suffering from anemia. A few years later, she would say that she had suffered a miscarriage, but in private she told the wife of cinematographer Robert Surtees that she had had an abortion. At that point in her relationship with Frank Sinatra, she hated him so much she did not want to bear his child.
The first day of shooting was disrupted by a large baboon that kept getting into camera range to watch Clark Gable and Ava Gardner film a love scene.
The censors in Spain did not allow adultery to be shown on the screen. For that reason, MGM changed the relationship of the characters of Linda Nordley (Grace Kelly) and Donald Nordley (Donald Sinden) from wife and husband to sister and brother in the dubbed version released in Spain. However, they did not delete a scene in which both share a bed together.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
