The House of the Seven Hawks (1959) was the final film by Robert Taylor under his 25-year contract with MGM, although he returned for one picture, the film Cattle King (1963).
Robert Taylor needed income; remarried in 1954, he was a new father and was still paying alimony to ex-wife Barbara Stanwyck. His features coarsened by alcohol and nicotine abuse, Taylor brought a believable air of world weariness to this mash-up of The Maltese Falcon (1941) and To Have and Have Not (1944).
One costar is notable: Donald Wolfit (cast as the dogged Inspector Van Der Stoor) was a revered Shakespearian actor whose career inspired Ronald Harwood's acclaimed stage play The Dresser and the Academy Award® nominated film adaptation The Dresser (1983) directed by Peter Yates.
According to news items in New York Times and the trade publications, M-G-M acquired the rights to Victor Canning's novel in March 1952. The news items add that the author was coming from Britain to the United States to work on the screenplay, but Canning's contribution to the final film is doubtful. Credit went to Jo Eisinger, a newspaperman turned Hollywood scribe who had adapted Gilda (1946) for Columbia and wrote the London-set noir Night and the City (1950) for Jules Dassin.
According to MGM records, The House of the Seven Hawks (1959) earned $415,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $650,000 elsewhere, resulting in a loss of $20,000 ($209,300 in 2023).