Gregory Peck resisted taking the role because an earlier Ernest Hemingway adaptation he had appeared in, The Macomber Affair had been a box-office flop.
Ernest Hemingway disliked the film because he thought it cannibalized material from his other work to pad the story. He told friend Ava Gardner that the only things he liked about it were her and the hyena. It has been reported, but not confirmed, that director Henry King mimicked the hyena on the soundtrack.
Although there was some impressive second unit work shot in Kenya, the principal actors shot their African scenes in Hollywood.
In the scene where Gregory Peck lifts up Ava Gardner, he threw out his knee and production had to close down while he recovered. Unfortunately, all the scenes of his lying down in his sickbed had been shot already.
This film was the second ever to be broadcast on NBC-TV's ground-breaking "Saturday Night at the Movies" series, September 30, 1961.