Arlene Dahl offered to play cards with Rhonda Fleming to determine who would be the first on the poster. Dahl won the game, and in return demanded that Fleming be the first in the credits of the film. Fleming was very touched by this gesture and the two actresses became good friends.
"Bay City", the fictional setting of this movie, was the name Raymond Chandler used for the corrupt city in his novels, based on Santa Monica of that time. (Although Chandler had no direct connection with this movie, he was a screenwriter of Double Indemnity (1944), based on James M. Cain's novel.)
Contrary to what one might have imagined, Rhonda Fleming and Arlene Dahl got on very well on the set and even became good friends.
When Barbara Stanwyck left the "good sister" role, "bad sister" Arlene Dahl suggested Rhonda Fleming inherit Stanwyck's part. According to Dahl, since film-goers tended to confuse her and Fleming "we wanted to do a film together so that people would see we had red hair in common but that was about it."
Originally planned as a vehicle for Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan with the title ''Counterfeit''. Stanwyck's exit has been attributed to a cracked vertebra caused by fall down a flight of stairs, while Ryan's was due to a broken leg.