Lancaster had earlier played a similar manipulative huckster in the filmThe Rainmaker (1956).The film was very popular and a box-office hit - on a budget of $3 million, it grossed $11.3 million dollars.It was shot in the uncharacteristic and unfashionable aspect ratio of 1.33, in protest to the current prevailing trend for CinemaScope features.The film was nominated for five Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Score (Andre Previn)) and won three: Best Actor for Burt Lancaster (his sole Oscar win of four Best Actor nominations), Best Adapted Screenplay (Richard Brooks), and Best Supporting Actress (Shirley Jones with her sole Oscar nomination, known for her squeaky-clean role in TV""sThe Partridge Family).[The film capitalized on the recent repeal of Prohibition, although in the novel set before Prohibition""s repeal, he couple had to drink boot-legged hootch."During practice for the ""Cat"" unit, the dancers were clumsily imitating cat behavior, and Kent critiqued Francis: "Hold it, hold it, hold it.I designed it.I""m very human." Bishop II attempted to coax Ripley to allow the extraction of the queen embryo egg-layer gestating inside of her by having her undergo surgery to extract it and then destroy it ("Can""t allow it to live") - but she didn""t believe him.