Esmond Knight who plays the captain of the HMS Prince of Wales actually served as an officer on board her and was injured during the battle.
Dana Wynter, the actress who plays Officer Anne Davis, was actually born in Berlin as Dagmar Winter.
According to special effects cinematographer L.B. Abbott, the miniatures were photographed with spherical (non-anamorphic) lenses. This made it easier to force the perspective of the image to make the miniatures appear bigger, and further apart. The conversion of the spherical footage to CinemaScope required the use of an optical printer with an anamorphic lens. This method of shooting with spherical lenses, yet converting the footage to anamorphic is now commonly used for complete films, and is called Super 35.
Average Shot Length (ASL) = 7 seconds
First film of 'Peter Ceiler'.
Kenneth More was offered The Guns Of Navarone because of this film.
Prior to the release of the movie, a song of the same title sung by Johnny Horton was released in the United States to promote the film. This song never appears in the actual film. Excerpts from the song were used in the US trailer.
The movie utilized actual real battle footage.
The opening of the film shows actual newsreel footage of the 'Bismarck' ship when it was launched to a Nazi crowd in Hamburg, Germany, in 1939.
The producers knew that the use of miniatures and explosions would have to look very realistic to be successful. They imported Howard Lydecker, one of the legendary Lydecker brothers who were generally considered to be the best special effects teams in the business and who had spent decades perfecting their craft at Republic Pictures, from the U.S.
This film's closing epilogue states: "This film was based upon actual operations against the German battleship, 'Bismarck'. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Admiralty for their most generous help, advice and co-operation. The character called Captain Shepard is completely fictionalized and is in no way intended to depict Captain R.A.B. Edwards (now Admiral Sir Ralph Edwards, K.C.B. , C.B.E.) who was the actual Director of Operations at the time of the 'Bismarck' engagement."
To increase the sense of realism, or "documentary feel", for this film, Edward R. Murrow was cast as himself. Murrow was one of the most famous and respected broadcast journalists of the era. He had covered the war in Europe, including the North Atlantic, and used his famous catchphrase "This is London..." Murrow also shot introductory footage for the film's trailer.