After "Patton" this was producer Frank McCarthy's second large-scale bio-pic
of a WWII US-general. However, one that he was less satisfied with than with "Patton", partly because of main actor Gregory Peck. In contrast to Scott Peck did not "get inside MacArthur". For instance, for a scene in which the 82-year-old generals speaks to cadet in West Point, Peck refused to put on the make-up that would have aged him appropriately. MacArthur biographer Robert Sherrod said: "MacArthur was a better actor than Peck".
But there were budgetary problems as well that forced McCarthy to shot in the studio and focuse on dialogue rather than shoting on locaction. With some exceptions: the scene of the Japanese capitulation was filmed on bord MSS Missouri and looks very similar to the well-known newsreel takes.

Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that Mr. Peck "not only looks and sounds like the general, he also makes the character disgracefully appealing, even when he is being his most outrageous."