According to maritime historian William J. Miller, the famed French Line was so horrified that their former flagship would be used in such a way that they demanded that the Ile de France's name be removed from the ship's bow and that in no way would any references be made to the French Line.
Features three actors who won Academy Awards for supporting roles: George Sanders for All About Eve, Edmond O'Brien for The Barefoot Contessa, and Dorothy Malone for Written on the Wind.
For the scene in which the dining room is seen flooding, with water rushing in through the portholes, fireboats were positioned alongside the liner. They fired water at the portholes into the dining room, which was still well above sea level.
The ship used by the filmmakers was the SS Ile de France, the famous French liner which cruised the Atlantic from 1926 to 1959. She was leased for $4,000 a day. After shooting completed, she was re-floated (having been partially sunk for the film) and was towed to the scrap yard. The SS Ile de France has a more heroic place in history, however. It was the SS Ile de France that played a major role in the rescue of the passengers from the Italian liner Andrea Dorea in 1956, after the latter ship collided with the Swedish ship Stockholm off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. The SS Ile de France was the first ship to arrive at the scene of the collision and immediately began taking aboard the Andrea Dorea's passengers.