In the final scene in the garden - where Philipe is sitting on the bench, there is a poem by Dorothy Frances Gurney written on the bench. Many garden lovers have this poem written in their gardens. It says: "Kiss of the sun for pardon. Song of the birds for mirth. You're closer to God's heart in a garden than any place else on earth."
For the role of 'Andréa', director Marco Ferreri had very definite ideas, he wanted a plump and buxom actress. One of his assistants spotted Andréa Ferréol, then unknown to the general public, at the theater. "I was called at 9 o'clock one morning, I did not know Ferreri at all, but I knew the other actors," says Ferréol. At the first meeting, she was immediately excited about the role, only she had to grow a lot: "I represent the woman, the sister, the mistress, the angel of death. This woman understood that they wanted to die and decided to accompany them. I said to myself: 'This role I will have', and I started to eat," she recalls, amused. When the young woman finally meets the director, she cheats a little to put all the chances on her side: "At this meeting, naughty that I was, I had put three sweaters to make bigger and boots. I still had to gain 25 kilos in two months. With his wonderful Italian accent, he simply asked me if I could gain more weight. Of course I could!" She was finally hired. Alain Coiffier took charge of negotiating the actress' rather unusual contract: "She was paid for each additional kilo she gained, with medical follow-up, and afterwards we had to take charge of a weight loss program. Ferreri regularly invites her to the restaurant to control her diet and asks her to change her hair color. No sooner said than done. "Redhead, 85 kilos, I was ready."
Andréa Ferréol said Marcello Mastroianni had an erection during filming. "It was in the scene where he takes me from behind," the actress recalls. "Nothing to be ashamed of and I can even say that now. When I realized that something was happening to Marcello, I pretended not to worry about it so as not to embarrass him"
The film was originally shown unlicensed in the UK at the Curzon Cinema in Mayfair, and led pro-censorship campaigner Mary Whitehouse to bring a prosecution against the film under the Vagrancy Act (accusing the cinema owners of "keeping a disorderly house"). The case was thrown out and led censor James Ferman to extend the Obscene Publications Act to cover films, thus preventing movies with 'artistic merit' from suffering prosecution. The film was eventually passed fully uncut for video in 1994. (Mrs. Whitehouse issued statements to the press about the elements of the film which had particularly disgusted her, describing several scenes in what seemed to some to be lubricious detail - especially as the equivalent scenes in the actual film were at least a little less appalling than the ones she described).
Between Florence Giorgetti, who plays one of the prostitutes, and the director Marco Ferreri , relations become tense very quickly. "At the beginning, we got along well with Marco... Then all of a sudden, I understood his perversion", analyzes the one who was then an actress still novice, married to Pierre Arditi and very young mother. At the origin of this discomfort, an improvised meal scene in which she chokes on a chicken bone under the laughter of the rest of the team. "I look at Ferreri and he does not cut. He hammers 'dai, dai, dai!' (Go, go, go!)" Her table neighbor, Marcello Mastroianni, pats her on the back and the young woman finally spits it out. "I felt that I had in front of me a pervert, someone who was fond of all the dangers that can exist on a film set," she still says indignantly. The scene will finally be cut in the editing, but faced with the angry reaction of Giorgetti, the director tries to push her in his last steps and puts her in situations more and more unpleasant to his taste. "Until the moment when he asks me to pee in front of everyone. I was thinking of my parents, you can imagine the Italian family that expects its daughter to make an extraordinary film with Ugo Tognazzi and discovers her peeing!" she laments. Giorgetti refuses, it is finally Michel Piccoli who will do it. Displaced gestures, painful sex scenes, the actress keeps a terrible memory of the shooting.