Executive producer Hunt Stromberg declared his dissatisfaction with the original opening sequence of Edgar G. Ulmer's own daughter Arianne Ulmer who played the young Jenny - she was purportedly not nasty enough - and so he and Hedy Lamarr enlisted Douglas Sirk to re-shoot the scenes using Jo Ann Marlowe who had appeared in Sirk's own A Scandal in Paris (1946) earlier that year, and who had also featured as Joan Crawford's daughter Kay in Michael Curtiz' Mildred Pierce (1945).
In an article for Screenland, Hedy Lamarr stated: "I'm happier than I have ever been in my life because for once I'm in a picture I know will give me an opportunity to act. The girl in "The Strange Woman" is a sadist, tempting and feminine, but cruel. It's a part you can get your teeth into. People will either like or dislike me intensely, but at least they will be aware of me. It's a part any actress would love, touching many emotions and delving into strange situations. It's dramatic and forceful."
The title comes from the Bible, the Book of Proverbs 5:3. "The lips of the strange woman drip honey and her mouth is as smooth as oil," and is quoted in the sermon scene.
Hedy Lamarr and Jack Chertok formed a partnership to produce this film. Without Lamar, the film would not have been made. Lamarr recalled in her autobiography, Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman, "I had the producers...and I had the money. Plus which I had several releasing companies eager to distribute."
"Now that I was making a picture for myself I decided to open up the role the way I always wanted to -to go out and research this type of girl in the flesh, in her native habitat, and then play her the way she is, with real-life motivations." Lamarr prepared for the role by traveling incognito to the harbors of Boston. "I disguised myself as best I could with a blonde wig and conservative clothes, and I traveled alone ... I wandered down to the white-sailed ships, curious about the girls in the dock area. I talked to several of them -they seemed too refined, too normal. Then I roamed to another section of the bay, listening to stories of the poor fishing girls. Three days of this and I was researched in depth when I got back to Hollywood."
"Now that I was making a picture for myself I decided to open up the role the way I always wanted to -to go out and research this type of girl in the flesh, in her native habitat, and then play her the way she is, with real-life motivations." Lamarr prepared for the role by traveling incognito to the harbors of Boston. "I disguised myself as best I could with a blonde wig and conservative clothes, and I traveled alone ... I wandered down to the white-sailed ships, curious about the girls in the dock area. I talked to several of them -they seemed too refined, too normal. Then I roamed to another section of the bay, listening to stories of the poor fishing girls. Three days of this and I was researched in depth when I got back to Hollywood."
Female leads Hedy Lamarr and Hillary Brooke were born two months apart in 1914. They died eight months apart in 1999 and early 2000.
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