Hellman's ex-husband Arthur Kober, Dorothy Parker and her husband Alan Campbell contributed additional scenes and dialogue.

The Hubbards are entertaining a dinner guest, William Marshall, a prominent Chicago businessman with whom they hope to partner in an enterprise to build a cotton mill in their sleepy town, taking advantage of low wages paid to workers.

Bidding her farewell at the train station as she leaves to pick up her father, he instructs her to open her eyes to circumstances surrounding her and to “think for yourself.” On her trip, he encourages her to widen her world, speak to strangers, and go beyond the societal conventions for women.

On another occasion, when asked by Regina whether he is courting her daughter, David replies that at present he is not declaring his intention, but that if he decides to do so, he will not care whether or not she approves.

When Horace dislikes the proposal to invest in the cotton mill, Regina continues to press him, making him aware of her mercenary motives for asking him to return home.

Quarreling alone with Regina, Horace intends to frustrate and punish his contemptuous wife’s scheming by claiming he lent her brothers the bonds.

Regina spews her hatred for him, informing him that she never loved him and had grown contemptuous of his unquestioning acceptance of her constant excuses for rejecting his affections.

Normally confined to a wheelchair, he collapses attempting to climb up a staircase to reach his medication while Regina makes no move to help.

Tallulah Bankhead had received critical acclaim for her performance in the 1939 Broadway production of Hellman's play, but director William Wyler, who previously had teamed with Bette Davis on Jezebel and The Letter, insisted on casting her in the lead role instead.

(Coincidentally, Davis had recreated on film another of Bankhead's Broadway roles, Judith Traherne in Dark Victory.)

"[6] Initially Jack L. Warner refused to lend Davis to Goldwyn, who then offered the role to Miriam Hopkins.

She later regretted doing so because after watching Bankhead's performance and reading Hellman's screenplay she felt compelled to create a totally different interpretation of the role, one she didn't feel suited the character.

Bankhead had portrayed Regina as a victim forced to fight for her survival due to the contempt with which her brothers treated her, but Davis played her as a cold, conniving, calculating woman wearing a death mask of white powder she insisted makeup artist Perc Westmore create for her.

Charles Dingle, Carl Benton Reid, Dan Duryea, and Patricia Collinge all reprised their critically acclaimed Broadway performances.

Not helping the situation was the fact Los Angeles was experiencing its worst heat wave in years, and the temperature on the soundstages regularly rose above 100 degrees.

"[5] A week later she returned to the set after rumors she would be replaced by Katharine Hepburn or Miriam Hopkins began to circulate, although Goldwyn was not about to bear the expense of scrapping all the footage with Davis and refilming the scenes with a new actress.

Once the movie premiered at the Radio City Music Hall, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times observed, Lillian Hellman's grim and malignant melodrama... has now been translated to the screen with all its original viciousness intact ... [It] leaps to the front as the most bitingly sinister picture of the year and as one of the most cruelly realistic character studies yet shown on the screen ... Mr. Wyler, with the aid of Gregg Toland, has used the camera to sweep in the myriad small details of a mauve decadent household and the more indicative facets of the many characters... Miss Davis's performance in the role which Talluluh Bankhead played so brassily on the stage is abundant with color and mood... she does occasionally drop an unmistakable imitation of her predecessor...

Charles Dingle as Brother Ben Hubbard, the oldest and sharpest of the rattlesnake clan, is the perfect villain in respectable garb.

[12] The film received 9 Academy Award nominations and no wins, setting a record later tied by Peyton Place in 1957.