Anita Louise, Bela Lugosi, and Mischa Auer were tested for the roles eventually played by Olivia de Havilland, C. Henry Gordon, and J. Carrol Naish, respectively.
During filming, director Michael Curtiz exclaimed "Bring on the empty horses!", meaning "riderless horses". David Niven would later use this phrase as the title of his autobiography. See also Casablanca.
During the filming of the charge sequence, a stuntman was killed when he fell off his horse and landed on a broken sword that was lying on the field where the charge was being shot, and was unfortunately wedged in such a position that its blade was sticking straight up.
In the famous charge scene, the man leaping up from the ground and remounting his racing horse is not Errol Flynn, but stuntman Buster Wiles.
It was during a Parkinson interview that his good friend David Niven revealed that during the filming of The Charge of the Light Brigade, Errol Flynn was busy on a horse during a break applying makeup with one hand whilst holding a mirror in the other. An extra decided to "pock" the horse up the behind with his lance - the horse bucked, throwing Flynn to the ground. He got to his feet and asked who had done that, the extra volunteered, thinking that this would only add to his embarrassment. However, Flynn dragged him from the horse and gave him a sound beating. They were the best of friends after that.
Over 200 horses were killed during filming, resulting in the US Congress passing new laws to protect animals used in motion pictures.
Scenes of this film were used in the 1983 music video "The Trooper" by Heavy Metal band Iron Maiden.
The film is dedicated "to the officers and men of the Light Brigade who died victorious in a gallant charge at Balaklava for Queen and Country - A.D. 1856."
The original script used the real-life siege of a British fort at Cawnpore (and subsequent massacre of its survivors) during the Sepoy Rebellion - a nationwide mutiny of Indian soldiers in the British army - as the reason for the famous Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava during the Crimean War. However, shortly before the film was started, someone pointed out that the Sepoy Rebellion took place three years AFTER the Crimean War. The fort's name was hurriedly changed to Chukoti, and instead of mutinous Indian soldiers, the besiegers were changed to tribesmen of a fictitious warlord called Surat Khan.
The second of nine movies made together by Warner Brothers' romantic couple Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn.
Unlike the rest of Errol Flynn's blockbuster films, because of the use of trip wires and the number of horses killed in the film, "The Charge Of The Light Brigade" was never re-released by Warner Brothers.