According to Michael Powell's book, "Million Dollar Movie," composer Mikis Theodorakis considered it shameful that a story about Cretan resistance fighters would be told by anyone other than Cretans. He told Powell and Emeric Pressburger that they were both political interlopers, a label he also used in describing Sir Patrick Leigh-Fermor.
Marius Goring had appeared in three other Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger films: U-Boat 29 (1939), A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and The Red Shoes (1948). Goring replaced Curd Jürgens, who was the original choice to play the part of General Heinrich Kreipe.
Watching the movie again years later, Michael Powell complained that he "was surprised by how bad the film was," happy or at least content with the setting and music but especially disappointed in the performances of the lead actors and his own direction, which "concentrated so much on creating a Greek atmosphere that [Powell] had no time, or invention for anything else." Although Powell was especially unhappy with Bogarde's performance, Patrick Leigh-Fermor expressed great satisfaction with Dirk Bogarde's representation of him---he described him as "oneself, at the age of 26." Bogarde was almost 10 years older than that, in fact.
The lines of poetry that Major Patrick Leigh-Fermor (Sir Dirk Bogarde) recites prior to the kidnapping are from "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (Canto III, Stanza 22) by Lord Byron.