John Sturges was the original director, but on March 15, 1957, only a week before the shooting was scheduled to begin, he withdrew due to illness, according to contemporary news items. George Cukor took over and stated years later in a interview that Sturges left the project to replace Fred Zinnemann on The Old Man and the Sea (1958), but a Cukor biography states that Sturges left the project when it became apparent that the film would be more of a love story than an action picture.