It was the first time Guatemala was used as a location for a major Hollywood movie.
Original literary source: "Benjamin Blake", novel by Edison Marshall, Farrar & Rhinehart &Co., New York, 1941.
This movie is a remake of "Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake" (1942).
The location shooting for the scenes in the indigenous village were shot in two towns on Lake Atitlan, San Antonio Palopo and Santiago Atitlan. You can tell which town was used for each shot because the local extras wore the distinctive traditional costumes of their town. You can go to both towns today and see people walking around in the same costumes shown in the film as Indigenous costumes from the 18th century
After Delmer Daves had finished the film and left for Europe to make his next one ("Never Let Me Go"), studio head Darryl Zanuck decided a few retakes were needed and persuaded Otto Preminger to direct them. Coming to the end of his Fox contract, Preminger agreed, and later insisted he had worked for only one day on the film, although this is probably not quite true.