Anecdotes

Although this movie was completed in 1971, it sat on the shelf for over a year and was finally released on a double bill with the psycho movie, La Tour du diable (1972).

Gillian Hills was a last-minute replacement for Marianne Faithfull, who was re-cast due to insurance reasons.

The role of Baron Zorn was originally offered to Paul Scofield and James Mason, both of whom turned it down.

Sir Dirk Bogarde was shortlisted for Baron Zorn.

Virginia Wetherell was displeased when she was expected to do a nude scene that was not in the script. Years later, she told author Wayne Kinsey: "In fact, Peter Sykes rang me up the night before to tell me about it. They were going to shoot the scene where I am trying on all these frocks, but now he apologized because he wanted me to have nothing on under the dress. I objected because there was no mention of nudity in the script and I didn't think it was necessary. He said, 'We're going to take all day to shoot it and we'll light it like a commercial.' I said I would do it on one condition - that there no stills. So I went in and did this scene with Patrick Magee and Yvonne Mitchell. Then at the end of it the stills man came in and said, 'Now for the stills' I told him I'd agreed to no stills, but he said I had to pose for them... In the end Michael Carreras and Frank Godwin came down to persuade me. I then got very angry. I tore off my wig and stormed off the stage in tears. I don't know where I thought I was going, because I had to use the unit car to go to Bolney... I think that's probably why Hammer never asked me to do another film for them."