Trivia

49.95 U.S. Dollars (which is what the Bibles sold by the salesmen cost in 1965-66, the time of the movie) is the equivalent of about $500 in 2025.

The Maysles brothers had themselves been door-to-door salesmen in the past, selling everything from cosmetics to encyclopedias. While filming, they became part of the pitch, telling those who let the salesmen and the camera crew into their homes that they were now part of "a human interest story."

In 1970, Pauline Kael, the influential film critic for "The New Yorker", accused brothers Albert Maysles and David Maysles of staging the scenes and having the subjects act their parts as salesmen. Kael also claimed that the brothers recruited Paul Brennan to portray a Bible salesman, even though he was really in the roofing and siding business. The Maysles threatened Kael and the magazine with a lawsuit and wrote a letter to the editor refuting Kael's accusations, pointing out that Kael could have confirmed Brennan's employment by calling The American Bible Company. The letter didn't surface until the 1990s, since "The New Yorker" doesn't publish letters to the editor.

The audio commentary that Brennan thought of himself as an actor after the film and him telling her so contributed to Kael's misunderstanding. He was offered a role in a film shooting in Spain after he was seen in the movie, but turned it down because the part wasn't big enough.

This film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1992.

The boxing match that is playing in the motel room is the middleweight heavy weight championship between Nino Benvenuti and Emile Griffith.