Trivia / The Egyptian

• Billing Displacement: Jean Simmons as Merit, a secondary character, got first billing while Edmund Purdom as Sinuhe, the protagonist, got seventh.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $3.9 million. Box office, $4.25 million.
• California Doubling: The whole movie was shot in California. The exteriors were shot in Death Valley and Red Rock Canyon State Park, both popular filming locations for Westerns.
• Dawson Casting: An inversion. Thirty year old Edmund Purdom played Sinuhe throughout his adult life but the novel states that Sinuhe was born the same year as Akhenaten: 1380 BC. As Akhenaten lived to be forty-four, this means that we have a thirty year old playing a forty-four year old late in the movie.
• Stillborn Franchise: A sequel was planned that would have brought back Victor Mature and Gene Tierney, but this movie's box-office was not strong enough, and the sequel was never made.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Marlon Brando was initially signed to appear opposite Bella Darvi. From the time of the first script read-through, the pair disliked each other. Darvi, cast as the courtesan Nefer, was also jeered by more experienced star Jean Simmons, who laughed with other cast members that Darvi was "an actress who 'nefer' was." Just as filming was to start, Brando refused to make this movie, his agent telling studio head Darryl F. Zanuck: "He doesn't like the director, he doesn't like the role. And he can't stand Bella Darvi!" John Cassavetes, Montgomery Clift, José Ferrer and Rock Hudson were also considered.
  • Marilyn Monroe lobbied hard to play Nefer, but Producer Darryl F. Zanuck had earmarked the role for his then-mistress, Bella Darvi.

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