Judith Anderson, who had achieved great personal success as Lady Macbeth onstage opposite Maurice Evans, was one of the few actresses that Orson Welles did not test for the role. He wanted a seductive Lady Macbeth, and tried to get Vivien Leigh for the role, but Laurence Olivier, Leigh's then-husband, refused permission.
Orson Welles assigned some of the lines spoken by characters in the play to different characters in the film. He invented the character "A Holy Father" for the film to emphasize what he believed was the struggle between religion and witchcraft in the play, and many of Ross' lines in the play are spoken by the Holy Father. The very minor character of the Old Man was omitted from the film, and his lines were also given to the Holy Father. Welles also gave Lady Macduff an extra speech which William Shakespeare had assigned to another character.
Orson Welles had planned to take his company and put on the play at the Utah Centennial Festival in Salt Lake city. With costumes and props at his disposal, Welles rehearsed his company and shot this film in 21 days.
Laurence Olivier wanted to follow up The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France with a film version of "Macbeth", but decided against it because Orson Welles version would reach theaters first. Olivier opted to make his film of Hamlet instead, which went on to win him Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor.
Jeanette Nolan's film debut.
Although the film was a critical and commercial disaster in both the USA and England, it was a huge success in many non-English speaking countries, especially France, where critics could not understand how the American and British press failed to appreciate the highly stylized and surrealistic approach Orson Welles took to the play. Today it is very highly regarded in English-speaking countries.
One of the witches is played by Brainerd Duffield, a man. Some sources mistakenly credit Charles Lederer in the role.
Shot in 21 days on a budget of $700,000.
The dialog was pre-recorded, leaving the actors to mime their lines.
The original 107-minute version with Scottish accents was completely withdrawn after the disastrous world premiere and did not resurface again until the 1980s.