Joan Greenwood was a trained ballet dancer but couldn't come to grips with the Hebridean style of dancing, so a local dancer was used for close-ups of her feet.
Ronald Neame turned down the chance to direct.
Alexander Mackendrick insisted on making the film entirely on location, an unusual move for Ealing Studios.
Alexander Mackendrick later described his direction of the film as "amateurish".
Monja Danischewsky had been working as a publicist for Ealing Studios and was bored with his job. To stop him from leaving, Michael Balcon gave him the task of producing this film.
James Thurber suggested that the film be called "Scotch on the Rocks".
American censors insisted on a coda being inserted at the end of the film, stating that the stolen whisky brought nothing but unhappiness to the islanders, even though quite the opposite was true in real life.
Another reason why the film was shot on location was because all the Ealing Studios were filled with other productions at the time.
Debuting director Alexander Mackendrick's background was in advertising where he used the technique of storyboarding. He did this for this picture, making it the first Ealing film to be storyboarded.
Ealing chief Michael Balcon was furious at how expensive the film was becoming (in excess of £20,000) until he finally saw the initial footage.
Fourteen whisky bottles, said to be the last surviving from the wreck of the SS Politician, the real-life shipwreck that inspired the film, were sold in 1993 at a Glasgow auction for £12,012 (approximately $22,500 at 2006 conversion rates), with a bottle of Haig Dimple fetching £1,210 (the equivalent of $2,270).
In France, the film was called "Whisky a Go-Go". This proved so popular a title, it became the name of one of the leading Parisian nightclubs.
In the original novel, the island was populated with both Catholics and Calvinists. The Catholics were dropped from the film as they would have had no trouble with not observing the Sabbath to salvage the whisky-laden ship.
In the US, the novel and film were titled "Tight Little Island" as there was a ban at the time on using names of alcoholic drinks in titles.
Ironically, the making-of documentary featured on the DVD/Blu-ray editions, "Distilling Whisky", cost the same amount of money to make as the film itself - £121,000.
Local islanders were hired as extras for £1 a day.
Part of the film's appeal to British audiences in the late '40s was that wartime rationing was still in place and times were very austere. The film's flaunting attitude towards authority obviously struck a chord.
Producer Michael Balcon was a bit thrown when a visiting American film executive saw the film and described it as a 'sleeper'. A term not known to Balcon at the time, he thought the executive meant it would put the audience to sleep.
Shot in three months.