For the secondary roles, producer and director Richard Burton, a graduate of Oxford University, cast drama students from the Oxford University Dramatic Society.
Movie critic Judith Crist once famously said of this movie: "It turns out to be the story of a man who sold his soul for Elizabeth Taylor."
This movie and Hammersmith Is Out (1972) are considered to be based on the Faust legend. Richard Burton co-directed this movie, in which he co-starred with Dame Elizabeth Taylor. As such, this was the first of two movies based on the Faust legend that the pair made together.
As a student in the 1940s, Richard Burton did some amateur acting for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), and considered Nevill Coghill a mentor. Some twenty years later, when the OUDS was in need of financial assistance, Burton, by now the most famous and highly-paid actor in the world, suggested that he play Dr. Faustus without any fee in an OUDS production directed by Coghill, and his wife Elizabeth Taylor agreed to play the non-speaking part of Helen of Troy (also unpaid). All the other actors were student amateurs. Every performance was a sell-out and the future of the OUDS was assured for many years. This film, which Burton co-directed with Coghill, is a sort of record of that production.