'Geraldine Moffatt', Sharon Gurney and Mitzi Rogers were among those on the shortlist for the role of Annie.
Linda Thorson auditioned for the role of Annie.
Edina Ronay was a possible for Annie.
Mitzi Rogers was among those thought suitable for the role of Jean.
In a 2006 interview, Anjelica Huston said she hated the conditions in which she appeared in this film so much that she had massive disagreements with her father, director John Huston, to the point that the pair fell out until their next film together, Prizzi's Honor, fifteen years later.
In his 2008 memoir. "I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History," producer Walter Mirisch says that he vetoed John Huston's desire to use his daughter Anjelica Huston as his leading lady opposite John Hurt in "Sinful Davey," the story of a Scottish rakehell. Mirisch was worried that the inexperienced Huston, who had appeared in only one other film at the time, A Walk with Love and Death, also directed by her father, would have to adopt a Scottish accent for the role. In addition, Mirisch felt that "...her appearance was rather more Italian than Scottish, and in stature she towered over John Hurt. John and I then had a serious falling out about casting Angelica." (For the record, Angelica is officially listed as 5'10" tall and Hurt at 5'9".) The producer and his director butted heads over Huston's insistence that his daughter play the female lead, but Huston finally capitulated, and Pamela Franklin was cast instead. (Angelica Huston appears in the finished film in an uncredited bit part.) The picture flopped, but Mirisch believed that the casting of the leading lady had nothing to do with it.
Producer Walter Mirisch complains that director John Huston's acted unprofessionally in the post-production period after the shooting of "Sinful Davey." The initial preview of Huston's cut of the film in New York was disastrous, and Huston refused to cut the film after attending another preview, informing Mirisch via his agent that "he liked it just the way it is." Huston's agent informed Mirisch that his client "didn't see any reason to be present at previews." United Artists, which financed the film, was upset over the previews and demanded a re-edit. Huston refused to re-cut the picture, and the re-editing process was overseen by Mirisch. "Sinful Davey" was a failure at the box office after it was released. In his 2008 memoir, "I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History," Walter Mirisch writes that, "John Huston, in his autobiography, said that he was aghast when he saw what I had done in the re-editing of his picture. Responding to preview criticism, I had tried to make it less draggy and more accessible to American audiences.... I saw John Huston again on a couple of occasions, many years after the release of "Sinful Davey," and he was very cold, as I was to him. I thought his behavior in abandoning the picture was unprofessional." The two, who had worked together on Huston's 1956 adaptation of
Robert Morley replaced James Robertson Justice.