Penicillin only recently had been introduced, proving to be a life-saving drug in WW2. In postwar Europe, the continent was still in shambles, with a huge black market for everyday necessities, including medicine. The noir classic The Third Man (1949) would further show the shadowy world of medical profiteering.
Filming was done on thirty blocks of London's East End waterfront district created by the art directors and set decorators on Universal-International Pictures' Sound Stage 21. This included wharves, cobblestone streets, old buildings exteriors, a court, a pool hall, two apartments, a train with passenger wagons and a prison with multiple rooms and cells, interchangeable through a monorail crane on rollers. One setting was used to arrange the opening twenty-nine block chase sequence. The film is set in London, England but was shot almost entirely at Universal-International Pictures' Sound Stage 21 from March to May 1948. Some exterior scenes were shot on location at Los Angeles's Griffith Park Zoo and Hollywood Park Racetrack.
The film was the first production by Burt Lancaster and his agent Harold Hecht's new film production company, Norma Productions (co-produced through Harold Hecht Productions). It was named after Lancaster's wife at the time. The film was financed and distributed through a one-picture deal with Universal-International Pictures, in exchange for Lancaster appearing in the studio's production of All My Sons (1948).
Burt Lancaster was said to be the only American actor in the film, with an all-British expatriate co-starring, featuring and supporting cast.
The mattes in the opening credits depict several famous London scenes, including the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Battersea Bridge and the statue of Boudicca as well as the busy docks of the old East End.