Actress Susannah York mentioned to director Robert Altman during one of the films pre-shooting sessions how she was writing a children's book called "In Search of Unicorns". Altman asked to read it. By the time he had finished the tale, Altman had decided to make York's character in the film a writer of children's' tales and asked York to quote parts of the fairy-tale in the movie. York received a writing credit for the film as the text was from her book. As such, the film represents actress York's film debut as a writer.
Director Robert Altman flew to Greece to convince actress Susannah York to do the movie. It was discovered that Altman was just as critical of the script he had written as York, who didn't want to do the film, was. Altman declared that his screenplay was merely just a starting point for the picture.
Actress Susannah York once said of this film: "It seemed a whole string of incidents with nothing to link them together into a meaningful whole. In fact, I would have turned down the part, only Bob [Altman] rang me up from Los Angeles. Imagine trying to hold a conversation with somebody in America from a telephone box in a Greek village cafe! I couldn't hear very much, but I gathered he wanted to fly over to Greece to talk things over with me. I was trying to say . . . well, is it really worth your while to come all that way, because I'm not very keen".
The sounds in the film, such as the crystal chimes, were provided by avant-garde Japanese percussionist Stomu Yamashta, utilising strings and percussion, to effect a unique series of exotic sounds, which complemented John Williams haunting music score.
The picture was filmed entirely on location in Ireland.