This film had a long and troubled history. Richard Hughes's original novel, published in 1929, is a dark and disturbing story, and James Mason, who greatly admired it, wanted to make a film of it in the 1950s, producing it for Twentieth Century-Fox as well as playing one of the leads. However, the studio saw it as a light-hearted Disney-style pirate adventure aimed at a family audience; several years after Mason's plans had come to nothing, they revived the project along these lines with Nunnally Johnson assigned as writer and producer. When Alexander Mackendrick was approached to direct, he was appalled by the travestying of Hughes's novel, and was able to persuade leading man Anthony Quinn that a more faithful and disturbing version of the book was a better idea. Johnson's script was rejected. Quinn used his considerable influence to help Mackendrick and the ensuing film was highly praised; it was, however, cut by the studio by about 25 minutes, which Mackendrick claimed had ruined it. He always insisted subsequently that he should never have attempted the film, which was a box-office failure.
James Mason had tried to set it up as part of his producer / director deal with Fox. He had planned to make it more about the children, and he would have starred alongside Stephen Boyd and Hayley Mills.
According to an article written by Hedda Hopper in The Los Angeles Times (July 7, 1961), producer Jerry Wald had signed John Mills and his daughter Hayley Mills for this movie. Wald died in July 1962 and the project did not materialize.
The film takes place in 1870.
The second Anthony Quinn vehicle to co-star Lila Kedrova, Zorba the Greek (1964) being both Quinn and Kedrova's immediately precedent cinematic credit.