When she was cast as Mrs. Fisher, Dame Joan Plowright said that about twenty years earlier she and Dame Maggie Smith had planned an adaption of the same novel in which they would play the parts of Lotty Wilkins and Rose Arbuthnot.
Made for British television in 1991, but well-produced enough to be released in theaters in the United States in 1992.
Alfred Molina was the only member of the cast and crew who could speak Italian and communicate with the Italian actors and locals during the shoot in Italy. He ended up acting as general interpreter for the production.
The Italian castle scenes were filmed at Castello Brown in Portofino, Italy, the same castle where Elizabeth von Arnim stayed in the 1920s while writing the novel of the same title, on which this movie was based.
There was no road leading up to Castello Brown, the Italian filming location for the castle. Cast and crew had to walk a mile up the hill every day in the morning, and then down again in the evening. All equipment and furnishings for the castle had to be carried up the hill. There was one elevator in the rock up to a neighboring house, but Dame Joan Plowright was the only member of the cast allowed to use it.