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Star and co-producer Tyrone Power had shot more than half of the film when he collapsed during a dueling scene with George Sanders and died a few minutes later. Yul Brynner replaced Power as Solomon, and reshot all of Power's scenes. Power is still visible in some long shots.
The script contained a stunt in which a motorcycle goes off a pier, but the stuntman hired for it refused to do the stunt. So John Ford hired a bystander, a young Marine named Jack Lewis, who wasn't an experienced motorcyclist, but said, "Sure, I'll do it." The Marine Corps wouldn't let Ford pay Lewis the $700 he had offered, so Ford went into the nearby Hilton hotel and told the management that Lewis could drink in the bar on Ford's tab for the next year. Lewis went on to become an author ("Chosen Tales of Chosin;" "The Sandtrap Marines") and publisher of magazines ("Gun World") and trade paperbacks ("Gun Digest Book of Guns," etc.), but one who maintained friendships with many in the movie business, including numerous cowboy film stars.
Sir Dirk Bogarde considered retiring from acting after making this movie, which he found to be a draining experience.
Many have compared Malcolm McDowell's flamboyant, over-the-top Nazi villain to Christoph Waltz from Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds; in particular, Waltz's interrogation of the French farmer alongside McDowell's interrogation of Michael Lonsdale. It was even brought up in an interview for The Passage blu ray, and McDowell said the Basterds' intro was one of his favorites of all time, and would be flattered if there was a connection.
During the production, Kirk Douglas was late to the set because he was shooting a commercial endorsement for the Democratic Governor of California, Edmund G. Brown. John Wayne was furious, and was late to work the next day because he was shooting a commercial for the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan.
This movie was shown to all new Royal Navy recruits after it was released to give them an idea and an impression of what life in the Navy was like.
Guns of the Timberland (1960)
Film producing debut for Aaron Spelling. (the famous TV producers of the 80’s & 90’s) NOTE: Alan Ladd (I) had been so impressed by Spelling's work on two television pilots that he gave Spelling his first film producing job.
Funeral in Berlin (1966)
Russian soldiers on the east side of the Berlin wall purposely disrupted filming by using mirrors to reflect sunlight into the cameras. The scene where Harry Palmer (Sir Michael Caine) walks to Checkpoint Charlie for the first time had to be filmed from a long distance for that reason.