John Proctor is the only member in the town's assembly who resists the attempts of the rich to gain more wealth at the expense of the poor farmers, thus incurring the wrath of deputy governor Danforth.

Jean-Paul Sartre began writing the script in late 1955,[2] during what author David Caute defined as "the height of his rapprochement with the Soviet Union".

He was inspired by the success of Marcel Aymé's French-language adaptation of Miller's The Crucible, titled Les sorcières de Salem, which was staged in Paris' Sarah Bernhardt Theater, starring Simone Signoret as Elizabeth Proctor.

Sartre later said he was moved to write his adaptation because "the play showed John Proctor persecuted, but no one knows why... His death seems like a purely ethical act, rather than one of freedom, that is undertaken in order to resist the situation effectively.

In Miller's play... Each of us can see what he wants, each public will find in it confirmation of its own attitude... Because the real political and social implications of the witch-hunt don't appear clearly."

[3] Sartre's version was different from the original play in many ways; Elizabeth saves Abigail from lynching and the townspeople rise up against Thomas Danforth, who becomes the chief antagonist.

"[17] According to Susan Hayward, the picture's release shortly after the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising by the Soviets caused several critics to attack it as a work of pro-communists, who resisted Joseph McCarthy and the French War in Algeria but supported the Kremlin.

[8] Arthur Miller wrote: "Mylene Demongeot, was [in The Crucible] truly beautiful and so bursting with real sexuality as to become a generalized force whose effects on the community transcended herself.

French studio Pathé was ultimately able to purchase the stake owned by Arthur Miller's estate in the distribution rights, and a restored version of the film was released on home video in France in 2017.