Bitter Victory

The making of this film was especially difficult. Screenwriter Gavin Lambert was, in later years, inclined to blame this chiefly on the abrasive and dictatorial personality of producer Paul Graetz, whom he and director Nicholas Ray both disliked intensely. The original plan was to cast Richard Burton as Brand and Montgomery Clift as Leith, but, when Clift dropped out of the film, Burton was promoted to the heroic role and Graetz insisted on Curt Jurgens being cast as the cowardly Brand, as he was a popular European star who was just starting to make American films, and it was assumed that this casting would be good for box-office. The fact that a German actor would be unlikely to be convincing as a British officer was ignored by Graetz. Ray and Lambert made the character South African to explain Jurgens' accent. The screenplay was constantly changed throughout filming, causing the actors much distress and bafflement, and Ray found the whole experience a disheartening one, although the film came to be recognized as one of his best. It was a box-office failure which was heavily cut to a running time of 82 minutes in the US.

After the raid on the German compound, in the fight out in the desert, an explosion goes off under a German vehicle, but there is a slight delay before it is obviously pulled over on its side.

The credits are designed to look like they came from a typewriter (although in white on a dark or transparent background). There are no upper case letters (capitals) in the credits.