The Chico Hamilton Quintet was chosen to play the jazz band in the film partly because they represented the West Coast and cool jazz styles popular at the time, but also because they were "clean". The producers screened them for months to make sure they weren't drug users to avoid giving Walter Winchell anything that he could use against the film.
Publicity materials for the film noted cinematographer James Wong Howe spread a film of Vaseline on Lancaster's glasses to create a shine and make his stare more menacing.
Tony Curtis' favorite of his films.
Ernest Lehman's original novella was first published in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1950, whose editors refused to print a story with the word "smell" in the title. For this publication, the title was changed to "Tell Me About It Tomorrow", although it reverted to Lehman's original title when published in book form. Lehman took some comfort from the fact that his original title was a term which entered the language.