The previous version, made in 1946, starred Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney. According to an interview with director John Byrum published on August 8, 2006 in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, he had wanted to film an adaptation of Maugham's book in the early 1980s. The director brought a copy of the book to his friend Margaret "Mickey" Kelley who was in the hospital after giving birth. Byrum remembers getting a call the next day at four AM, "and it was Mickey's husband, Bill [Murray]. He said, 'This is Larry, Larry Darrell.'"