The opening title card of the film reads: "Ernest Hemingway's The Macomber Affair." The film's working titles were The Great White Hunter and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. The character portrayed by Gregory Peck was based on real-life hunter Bror Blixen, whose wife, Isak Dinesen (1885-1962), was the author of the autobiographical book Out of Africa. In the 1985 film adaptation of the book, also titled Out of Africa, Blixen's character was portrayed by Klaus Maria Brandauer. In Aug 1941 HR announced that Samuel Goldwyn was planning a film based on Hemingway's short story, which was to be co-directed by Howard Hawks and Victor Fleming and star Gary Cooper. Goldwyn, Hawks, Fleming and Cooper were all to produce the picture, and filming was to be done in Africa. That film was never made, however. Modern sources state that Hemingway received $75,000 from Casey Robinson, one of the writers of the 1947 film, for the screen rights to his story. The film marked Robert Preston's return to the screen after four years in the Army Air Force. According to contemporary sources, wild animal safari scenes in the film were photographed in Kenya, Africa, while location shooting with the cast took place near Tecate, Mexico.
       Many modern sources have called the film one of the most faithful cinematic adaptations of a Hemingway story, despite the fact that the story's ending was significantly altered. In Hemingway's story, "Margo" and "Wilson" do have a sexual affair, but do not fall in love, and Margo remains a less sympathetic character at the end of the novel. According to files in the MPAA/PCA Collection at the AMPAS Library, after the Breen Office objected to any indication of a happy ending for the "two wrongdoers," Wilson and Margo, a new ending was written in which Margo goes before the coroner's office and awaits a verdict. In the final version of the film, Margo's guilt remains ambiguous, and ads for the film contained the slogan "Murder or Accident?" The Breen office also ordered that the filmmakers "more clearly indicate the seriousness of Wilson's punishment for his part in the adultery." As a result of the PCA order, Wilson is shown losing his license. The NYT review criticized the film for turning Hemingway's story into a romance, stating: "It is plainly a sentimental fixture which has no place in the film and which detracts from an otherwise commendable hate-and-jealousy yarn. If the footage devoted to this tag-end had been used to emphasize the irony of the story--of humans, so-called, slaughtering splendid beasts...--the boys would have had quite a film."
       Before the film was issued a Code Seal, the hunting scenes had to be approved by the American Humane Society. In a letter from Richard C. Craven of the Humane Society to MPAA agent Geoffrey Shurlock, Craven states that, although he personally "abhor[red] hunting," he could not protest the film because the kill was restricted to one lion and two buffalo and was photographed by cameramen from Great Britain, where hunting is accepted "as little to worry about."