Sir Michael Caine lists this, along with O Enxame (1978) and Ashanti (1979), as one of the worst movies he ever made. This is mainly down to the fact that no one, least of all the audience, knew what it was about.
A critical and commercial disaster. Screenwriter John Fowles laid most of the blame at the feet of director Guy Green (despite Fowles having penned the screenplay). He vowed never to write another screenplay after this (nor did he). The only subsequent adaptation of any of his works was Karel Reisz's A Mulher do Tenente Francês (1981), by Harold Pinter.
John Fowles insisted on writing the screenplay, having been so disappointed with William Wyler's adaptation of his novel O Colecionador (1965).
Over ten years after making this film, Candice Bergen told a British interviewer that the novel had been her favorite book and that John Fowles' script had been wonderful, one of the two best screenplays she had ever read. She also claimed that it had been extensively rewritten by an assortment of hacks during filming and that the result was, as she put it, "swill".