The movie and source novel's title is derived from stanza in the poem "An Essay on Criticism" (1709) by Alexander Pope. It reads: "Nay, fly to Altars; there they'll talk you dead; For Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread".
Rupert Graves and Helena Bonham Carter appeared in the E.M. Forster adaptation A Room with a View (1985).
Part of a 1980s to early 1990s cycle of filmed adaptations for the cinema from stories by E.M. Forster. The movies include Maurice (1987), Howards End (1992), A Room with a View (1985), A Passage to India (1984), and Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991). Of these, except for Maurice (1987), all of these had previously been filmed as two-hour television episodes as part of the BBC Play of the Month (1965) series between 1965 and 1973.
Rupert Graves and Writer and Director Charles Sturridge previously collaborated on the Evelyn Waugh adaptation A Handful of Dust (1988). Both productions shared around a dozen personnel.
Judy Davis won the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in this movie and Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives (1992).