Although the script places the location in a small Mississippi Gulf town, exteriors were shot in Key West. While scouting for locations, a perfect fit was found on Duncan Street for the exterior of the house owned by Serafina Delle Rose. Filmmakers needed to build a fence for a goat paddock, and the crew was worried the owner of the house next-door might object to the filming nearby and a ramshackle fence on his property. They needn't have worried - the house and property next-door at 1431 Duncan was the home that Tennessee Williams shared with his lover Frank Merlo, who happily agreed to its use, even inviting Magnani (close friends of Merlo and Williams) and Lancaster to use it as their dressing rooms. In later years, Williams had an enormous mosaic of a rose tattoo embedded in the floor of the pool behind the house, which is still there.
In The Mardi Gras Club scenes, a few familiar faces appear among the extras. As Serafina storms by the men on bar stools, Tennessee Williams himself can be seen sitting at the bar in a striped shirt. The man beside him is producer Hal B. Wallis. The shorter man in the white shirt standing directly behind Estelle Hohengarten Virginia Grey, helping to restrain her, is Frank Merlo - Williams' longtime companion and lover.
This was Anna Magnani's first English-speaking role in a Hollywood film. She was very nervous about her English and her heavy accent during filming, and in fact had turned down the role in the stage version earlier for the same reason. Magnani's performance was widely applauded, and she won the Oscar for Best Actress.
Although Tennessee Williams wrote the role of Serafina in his 1951 Broadway play for Anna Magnani, her English skills were too limited, and Maureen Stapleton played the role instead to great acclaim. Stapleton also would originate the role of Lady Torrance in Williams' "Orpheus Descending," a role Magnani would play on film in "The Fugitive Kind" (1959).
The original Broadway production of "The Rose Tattoo" by Tennessee Williams opened at the Martin Beck Theater in New York on February 3, 1951, ran for 306 performances, and won four 1951 Tony Awards: Best Play, Best Featured Actor in a Play (Eli Wallach), Best Featured Actress in a Play (Maureen Stapleton), and Best Scenic Design (Boris Aronson).