Follow That Dream

The courtroom scene was filmed in the Citrus County Courthouse in nearby Inverness, Florida. When the courthouse was restored and made into the Old Courthouse Heritage Museum during the 1990s, photographs of the courtroom were scarce, since courtroom photography was not allowed there for many years. With permission from MGM, still photographs of the film were used as reference to recreate the look of the courtroom. As of 2009, the only known visual record of the original courtroom interior is that which is in Follow That Dream (1962).

Singer/songwriter Tom Petty claims that he first became obsessed with rock and roll after meeting Elvis Presley and watching him act and sing during the making of this movie. Petty's uncle was a crew member working on the film.

A part of SR40 was re-named "Follow that Dream Highway" in honor of this movie having been filmed there. A sign in Inglis, Florida (about 13 miles north of Crystal River) proclaims that fact. However none of the movie was made in Inglis, it was filmed in adjacent Yankeetown. The city council of Yankeetown declined to name their stretch of road after Elvis because of concerns in regards to his drug addictions in later years. As of November 19th 2011 the Mayor of Yankeetown issued a Dedication for the Yankeetown stretch of SR40 to be named Follow That Dream Parkway with a new sign directly under the Yankeetown sign was unveiled. The original Elvis Presley Fan Club-The Elvis Presley Continentals was in attendance for the Dedication.

Herman Raucher was hired to adapt the book "Pioneer, Go Home!" into a movie. The studio heads were displeased with the script he handed to them, saying that the dialogue didn't seem to fit the characters. Raucher told them that since the book didn't feature much dialogue for him to work with, he had to make up most of it up himself, and since he'd grown up in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, he had no idea what farm people sounded like. Raucher refused to re-write the dialogue, and an argument erupted between Raucher and the studio heads, with Raucher being fired from the project. Another writer, Charles Lederer, was called in to re-write the dialogue for Raucher's script, and Raucher received no credit for the work he'd done. In 1963, the script that Raucher had written was adapted into the play "Pioneer, Go Home!" Raucher recounts the story of his work on the movie and eventual firing in his book "There Should Have Been Castles."

While most of Elvis' movies were aimed squarely at Presley's teen-aged female fans, this one was clearly intended for family audiences.