Marlene Dietrich chose her wardrobe from the newest Christian Dior collection and charged it to the studio. She decided that the fur stole they had wasn't ample enough for her character so she threw on a mink cape and used the stole as a collar piece to get the luxurious look she wanted.
The concept of an airliner suffering catastrophic failure due to metal fatigue after a certain number of flight cycles, as outlined in the 1948 novel and this 1951 film, came true with the failures of the de Havilland Comet in 1954. There are a number of eerie parallels between the fictional account and the later actual events.
According to Kenneth More's autobiography, Marlene Dietrich had several of her lines rewritten by Noël Coward, who went uncredited for his work.
The single-engine jet fighter seen is a rare Gloster E.1/44 prototype, first flown in 1948. Three were produced for testing. One was destroyed in a ground transportation accident. The other two were scrapped after the program was canceled in 1951, shortly after this film was made.
At the beginning of the film, Scott looks up to see a twin-tailed jet fly over. That plane is a De Havilland FB Mk I "Venom". First flown in 1949, the plane had not yet entered service at the time of this film's production--a rare look at the first production model of the Venom undergoing testing.