Humphrey Bogart's last tough-guy role.
Fredric March's part was intended for Spencer Tracy, a good friend of Humphrey Bogart's, but neither Tracy nor Bogart was willing to concede top billing to the other.
Hugh O'Brian played the Fredric March role on the stage of the Arlington Park Theater in Arlington Heights, IL, in the early 1970s.
Bogart to director Wyler after the preview: "I think I'm too old to play gangsters"
Chuck's car was a Nash Healy.
The Character of Glenn Griffin was made older so Humphrey Bogart could play the role. The stage version starred Karl Malden and a young Paul Newman in the Bogart role
The exterior of the house used in the film is the same set used as the Cleaver home in the TV series Leave It to Beaver.
The first black and white movie in VistaVision.
The original Broadway production of "The Desperate Hours" by Joseph Hayes opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York on February 10, 1955, ran for 212 performances and won the 1955 Tony Award for the Best Play.
This movie and the play on which it was based, are loosely based on the experience of the Hill family in 1952. An article published by Life magazine about the play is the subject of the Supreme Court case Time Inc. v. Hill, in which the family sued the magazine for stating that play depicted what really happened.