There are several connections with the cast and crew: Dana Andrews and Jeffrey Hunter appeared in The Frogman together, in 1951... Hunter played Andrews' character in Lure Of The Wilderness, which was a remake of Swamp Water... Dana Andrews and Anne Francis had worked together twice: In The Crowded Sky (as pilot and flight attendant) and The Satan Bug (as father and daughter)... Jeffrey Hunter was directed by William Conrad in The Man From Galveston... And Viveca Lindfors played Pilate's wife in King of Kings, where Hunter played Jesus Christ.
The $1,000 reward check Benson sends Grayam would equate to over $9,400 in 2022.
Probably coincidentally, one scene foreshadows a classic moment in the 1978 classic National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), which was made thirteen years later: John Mitchum (Robert Mitchum's brother) appears as an inmate who's playing an acoustic guitar and singing the opening line of "The Riddle Song" where the lyrics begin, "I gave my life a cherry..." In Animal House, John Belushi destroys musician Stephen Bishop's guitar as he sings the beginning of the song, and when John Mitchum sings the same verse, Jeffrey Hunter violently screams for him to "Shut up!"
Last film of Victor Rodman. Here he plays an inmate, uncredited. Coincidentally, his first role over fifty years previously was as "Dippy - an Escaped Lunatic" in Dippy's Dream (1914).
Dana Andrews and Anne Francis are mentioned in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) song Science Fiction: Dana for Curse of the Demon (1957) and Anne for Forbidden Planet (1956). Both are cult movies from the 1950's.
William Conrad: can be seeing lying on the bunk to the right of the man playing the song he won't finish. When Jeffrey Hunter yells at the guitar player, Conrad, smoking a cigar in bed, turns and looks in Hunter's direction.