This film contains just 169 shots in 103 minutes of action. This equates to an average shot length of about 36 seconds, which is very high, given the 8 - 10 seconds standard of most Hollywood films made during the 1950s.
Eartha Kitt was offered the role of Carmen, but the studio wanted her singing voice to be dubbed, so that her character would have an operatic voice. The same offer was made to Harry Belafonte and Diahann Carroll who accepted, but Kitt refused, wanting to use her natural voice. Dubbing was not required for Pearl Bailey, whose own voice suited her comedic songs.
The singing voices of Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge were dubbed by LeVern Hutcherson (as Le Vern Hutcherson) and Marilyn Horne (as Marilynn Horne), respectively, even though Belafonte and Dandridge were both accomplished singers. However, neither had the training nor the range to sing operatic roles. Katherine E. Hilgenberg, a soloist with the Roger Wagner Chorale (morphed later into the Los Angeles Master Chorale), was originally signed to sing the Carmen role, and a number of the arias were already recorded (with piano, on a separate track), when director Otto Preminger's bullying behavior became too much for her and she quit. Horne ("Jackie") was a 19-year-old music student at nearby USC. She auditioned for the part and was immediately hired - for $300. But it was a terrific break for her, and she grabbed it, and did an outstanding job, re-recording what Hilgenberg had already sung, plus the balance of the music. It's also fun to note that Horne was a singer for Tops Records, a company that made sound-alike recordings of hit records with identical arrangements (in those days arrangements could not be copyrighted) and "stand-ins" who could mimic the artists who made the hit record. Jackie Horne, later to become a major 20th-century opera star, was funding her college expenses, in part, by recording Kay Starr's hits. Starr was famous for belting out her songs with a certain razzmatazz style, and Horne's rendition was a dead-ringer. The Tops Records offices, it should be noted, were within walking distance from the USC campus.
In France, theaters were not allowed to show this movie for more than 25 years because the heirs of the French librettists of the original opera "Carmen", sued Twentieth Century Fox for using different lyrics with Bizet's music.
Leontyne Price was originally assigned to dub Dorothy Dandridge's singing voice, but fell ill and was replaced by Marilyn Horne (as Marilynn Horne).