Unsounded's Captain Claggart is named for a character from Billy Budd.
Charles Fuller's Pulitzer-winning A Soldier's Play is a reworking of Billy Budd, set on a segregated US Army base in the 1940's American South.
The film:
Enforced Method Acting: Terence Stamp, who had never been in a film before, stated that he was disconcerted by Robert Ryan's keeping him at a distance during filming. He later realized that this had been done deliberately to create the right tension between their characters.
Executive Meddling: Peter Ustinov was horrified by attempts by Allied Artists to make this movie more commercial. One idea was to close this movie with a montage of stock footage from pirate movies. There were also repeated attempts to impose a happy ending on the film. Ustinov sarcastically asked if they thought Ben-Hur (1959) would have been a bigger hit had Christ been reprieved from the Crucifixion in that film. The tragic ending of Melville's story was retained.
