Star Phoebe Cates has said of this film: "I was only 17 when I did my nude scenes in 'Paradise'. They were serious and more difficult because they were not easily justified. But the topless scene in Fuori di testa (1982) was funny, which made it easy".
This motion picture was filmed entirely on location in Israel. Middle East locations used for this film there included the Sea of Galilee, the caves of Bebit Jobrim, the City of Jerusalem and a Turkish Mosque near Tel Aviv.
The Columbia Pictures studio sued the producers of this movie because they said they had the rights to the Henry De Vere Stacpoole novel "The Blue Lagoon" (1908). The studio had turned the book into the movie Laguna blu (1980) about a couple of years earlier and the resultant 'Paradise' picture strongly resembled it. The case was settled out of court.
Actor Willie Aames has stated in an interview that the love scenes were more explicit in the version that he and Phoebe Cates were shown for approval. During production, Cates and Aames decided that the picture did not require the amount of nudity that had been written into the script. She turned 18 ten months prior to release. So, at her tender age, filming the nude scenes was highly questionable.
The title track sung by Phoebe Cates was a smash number one hit in Italy. Turns out it became the second best selling single there for all of 1982.