According to Screenwriter Winston Miller, this movie was the first post-War movie that portrayed the Japanese "as nice people."
Was originally released by RKO Radio Pictures, but was acquired and released by Universal-International after RKO closed down.
The U.S. Air Force search and rescue plane is a Grumman HU-16 "Albatross." 466 were made from 1949 to 1961. Note an early, uncredited role for Clint Eastwood as its pilot (at 7:55 min).
Last project of Jon Provost before he would start the role he is most known for on the TV series Lassie (1954).
Clint Eastwood was uncredited despite his character having a name: "Dumbo." While laboring off the books at a gas station, he met the first man in Hollywood to see promise in him: Arthur Lubin. A veteran director of several Abbott and Costello comedies, Lubin thought Eastwood had potential but lacked a tangible craft. He urged the young hopeful to take acting classes and brokered a $75 a week contract from Universal, as well as auditions (albeit unsuccessful) for bits in The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (1955). Universal dropped Eastwood in October 1955, kicking him out of the studio gates alongside fellow contract players David Janssen and Burt Reynolds. Lubin eventually slotted the actor into one his "Francis the Talking Mule" films, Francis in the Navy (1955), and gave Eastwood his first significant role, as a love-struck Rough Rider in the comic western The First Traveling Saleslady (1956). This film would be Eastwood's last for Lubin and his services were tendered in the space of a single day, netting him $175. Eastwood's luck would soon change with a featured role on the weekly western Rawhide (1959).