"The Hedda Hopper Show - This Is Hollywood" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on December 7, 1946 with Edward G. Robinson reprising his film role.
Orson Welles originally wanted Agnes Moorehead to play the FBI part. The studio said no and instead gave him Edward G. Robinson.
Orson Welles' least favourite film of his own.
A "Carthaginian peace", as mentioned by the characters, is used to refer to any peace treaty demanding total subjugation of the defeated side. It is based on the defeat of Carthage by Rome and the total destruction of Carthage thereafter. In modern times, it is often used to describe a peace settlement in which the terms imposed by the victor are overly harsh and designed to keep the loser subjugated for a long time, if not forever..
A lengthy scene of Meineke trying to find Kindler was filmed but cut by the studio. The footage (between 20-30 minutes) is believed lost as even the original negatives have gone missing. (see alternate versions)
During the dinner conversation, a correspondent, Standish of the London Times in Berlin, is mentioned. This could be a reference to Henry Standish, a war correspondent for the 'News Chronicle', a UK daily paper (1930-1960). (Standish is quoted in 'What Buchenwald Really Means' by Victor Gollancz (1945)). Whether this reference is meant to be the same Standish and whether Standish really wrote an article similar to the one discussed in the film is not able to be determined.
In one of the final scenes, when Orson Welles lifts Loretta Young one-handed into the clock tower from a ladder, this is not a special effect. Loretta Young stated that this was actually filmed in the church with her dangling dangerously many feet above the church floor.
In the scene where Meinike is murdered, the culprit escapes through a door in the gymnasium which has a sign posted on it. The sign reads "Use at your own risk" and is signed "Coach Roskie". In reality there was a football coach that lived and coached at Todd School in Woodstock Illinois during the 1940s.
The first film released after WWII that showed footage of the concentration camps.
The vast New England town exterior sets including the church with its 124' clock tower were constructed in Hollywood on the back lot of the United Artists Studio located on Santa Monica Blvd. In some production shots taken by LIFE Magazine, the circular metal scaffolding of a huge collapsible natural gas storage tank can be seen behind some of the sets. The only such tank nearby a Hollywood studio was a block away from UA.
Though not as well remembered as some of Orson Welles's more original projects, this was the only film directed by Welles to show a profit in its original release.