For the first two days, filming was done in color. However, director Louis Malle realized that this was a distraction from the story, so he decided to film in black-and-white. An assistant also later declared that the shooting atmosphere on the set was rather gloomy.
Alain is seen in his room reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby". Visible among his other books are Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited and Other Stories" and "This Side of Paradise".
Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1 which can be heard in this movie also appeared in My Dinner with Andre (1981) by the same director, Louis Malle.
The Minville twins, well-off OAS sympathizers, were added to the script by Louis Malle as a criticism of right wing French New Wave directors and their support for the French occupation of Algeria.
It was said that five years later, during the Paris riots in May 1968, Maurice Ronet and Louis Malle fought against each other, because Malle hoped that there should a death among the crowd, so that a true revolution could begin. Ronet was outraged by this, and a fistfight began.