A documentary which outlines a more factual and non-fictionalized account of the Battle of the Bulge entitled The Battle of the Bulge... The Brave Rifles was made and released a year after this movie was made.
Although it is claimed by knowledgeable film people that so-called Super-Cinerama was already in use as early as 1962, this was the first film that was actually advertised in the trailers as being shown in that format. The resulting image did not turn out to be larger than ordinary Cinerama, since the film was actually shot in Ultra Panavision, shown with one projector instead of three electronically synchronized ones, and merely blown up in size to fit the giant curved screen.
King Tiger tanks in this movie are portrayed by M47 Patton tanks whilst M4 Sherman tanks are portrayed by M24 Chaffee tanks.
Part of this movie's music score utilized the World War II "Panzer Song" march.
The character of the German Colonel was first intended to be the real life Panzer officer Joachim Peiper, the youngest man in the Nazi Army to be make the rank of full colonel (SS-Standartenführer, the direct SS equivalent to an Oberst or full colonel in the German army). However, since Peiper, a protégé of 'Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler' , the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the second most powerful man in Germany after Adolf Hitler, was promoted to the ran at the age of 29. However, as he was still living at the time the film was produced and was still a committed Nazi, his character was quickly changed to a fictitious Regular German Army officer, so as not to give Peiper any connection to the film or risk a libel suit. It was Peiper's unit of the Waffen-SS, Kampfgruppe Peiper of the 1st SS Division, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (German for "Adolf Hitler's Bodyguard Regiment") that was responsible for the Malmedy massacre of American prisoners depicted in the film. After the War, he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted by the American Occupation Force as the trial had been fraught with illegalities, and he served only 11 years in prison, despite having perpetrated war-crimes on both the Eastern and Western fronts. Peiper was assassinated at his home in France, likely by French communi
The film's dedication credits statement states: "This picture is dedicated to the one million men who fought in this great battle of World War II".
The film's senior military advisor, Maj. Gen. Meinrad von Lauchert, was the commander of the German 2nd Panzer Division during the real Battle of the Bulge. He then had the rank of Oberst (Colonel).
The name of the song that the Germans sing is "Panzerlied". However, only the first four lines of the song are actually sung.
The sequence of the train transporting the big guns was expanded with additional footage shot after principal photography. The extra footage consisted of POV shots from the front of the train and shot at a lower frame rate to make the train appear to be traveling very fast around the curves in the track. This was done to show off the Cinerama process in much the same way as the famous rollercoaster sequence in This Is Cinerama. Much of this footage was removed from the general release version.
The version of the film released on DVD contains approximately 1196 shots in 9397 seconds of action. This equates to an average shot length of about 7.9 seconds.
This film was denounced by former President (and Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during WW2) Dwight D. Eisenhower soon after its release in a press conference due to its glaring historical inaccuracies.
This film was shot in Ultra Panavision for showing in Cinerama venues.
This movie's closing epilogue states: "To encompass the whole of the heroic contributions of all the participants, places, names and characters, have been generalized and action has been synthesized in order to convey the spirit and essence of the battle."