Robert Mitchum and Jack Palance were former professional boxers. Also, the real-life Mexican boxer Abel Fernandez (Rivera) made his screen debut in this film.
Second Chance (1953) marked RKO's first foray into 3-D filmmaking, a prevalent cinema fad in the 1950s, and its first stereophonic release. The film did well at the box-office, despite the high cost of the 3-D, stereophonic prints and the limited number of theaters equipped for 3-D projection. The film also was released in standard 2-D. The picture is also the first Hollywood 3-D feature shot on a foreign location.
When Felipe gives Russ advice about a woman, the latter replies sarcastically, "Thank you, Beatrice Fairfax." Beatrice Fairfax was a famous advice columnist of the time. A George Gershwin song "But Not for Me" includes the line "Beatrice Fairfax, don't you dare ever tell me he will care."
Bad guy Jack Palance is fresh from his critically well-regarded recent work in his terrifying performances in Shane (1953) and Sudden Fear (1952) has since become the hottest heavy in Hollywood, emitting a "hostile energy, like something left overnight in a plutonium pile," per Time magazine review.
Critic Jeff Stafford said the final scenes of Second Chance (1953) were "much more intense in 3-D when the depth of field and spatial relationships create[d] a genuine sense of vertigo."