Trivia

Due to the cast, director and setting, this is often assumed to be a British movie, but it was entirely filmed in California.

In interviews, Writer and Director Bryan Forbes said he had to fight the Screen Actors Guild over the most of the fifteen British Equity members he wanted to cast. The Screen Actors Guild wanted British SAG members, most of whom were fairly elderly, and not suitable for this movie.

Some of the actors had been P.O.W.s in World War II. Denholm Elliott (Lieutenant Colonel G.D. Larkin), while serving in the Royal Air Force, had been shot down and taken prisoner by the Germans.

James Clavell, the author of the original novel, based his book on his personal experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II.

Paul Newman and Steve McQueen were offered the chance to star in this movie. They turned it down; however, George Segal, who had his first star part in a film as Corporal King, claimed that, in fact, Bryan Forbes had turned them down and gone with him instead. Segal claimed he had always been immensely grateful for this. He later starred in Forbes's last film, the two-part TV movie "The Endless Game".