When producer and director Joseph Losey was hospitalized for two weeks during this shoot, Dirk Bogarde continued filming assisted by minute, daily instructions over the phone from Losey's hospital bed. When Losey returned to the set, he did not re-shoot any of the script, much to the relief of cast and crew.
Producer and director Joseph Losey's tenth movie shot in the U.K. after he was blacklisted in Hollywood.
This movie was made on a budget of £135,000. It was a big box-office hit. Producer and director Joseph Losey later claimed it was the only movie upon which he'd had a percentage of the profits actually to make him some money.
Wendy Craig replaced Vanessa Redgrave, who had to drop out because she was pregnant with her eldest child Natasha Richardson.
Originally planned as a movie by a different director, Michael Anderson. It was he who commissioned Harold Pinter to write the script in 1961. When Anderson dropped out of the project, producer and director Joseph Losey took over and insisted that Pinter's script be extensively re-written. This led to what Losey claimed was their only quarrel in over twenty years of close friendship (but Pinter did do the re-writes).