Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren recorded the novelty song "Goodness Gracious Me!" in order to promote the movie. The song became a big worldwide hit.
In 1953 Katharine Hepburn planned to film this George Bernard Shaw piece and hired Preston Sturges to pen a screenplay. Despite the fact that Sturges turned in a very funny script, the deal to make the movie, which would have co-starred Alec Guinness, fell apart.
At 14 minutes into the film, Epifania (Sophia Loren) climbs a bridge railing and jumps into the River Thames. That bridge was the "New" London Bridge, and it now stands. The original bridge, after being dismantled, was shipped to America, and reconstructed at Lake Havasu City, Arizona USA.
The casting of Peter Sellers as an Indian. which had been accepted largely without comment by British reviewers in 1960, was widely later condemned (by white people during the modern era of political correctness) as racist. However, the British-Asian author and film-maker Hanif Kureishi defended the film on television, pointing out that the film showed an inter-racial love affair with a happy outcome and without any special emphasis - an aspect which had not been noticed when the film was new.