Often named as the first movie to use the word "fuck" in its dialogue. Another contender is "Ulysses (1967)," another film of 1967. However, "The Victors" - which features the F-word in a song soldiers are heard singing - was first seen four years earlier. (This scene appears now to vanished completely from the film and is not on the DVD version; however, it was remarked by critics in 1963).
At the time of filming, Orson Welles was widely quoted as saying that Peter Draper's screenplay was the best he had read since "The Third Man (1949)."
This movie was denied an M.P.A.A. seal of approval due to a scene between Oliver Reed and Carol White that implied oral sex. "Universal Pictures" distributed this movie through a subsidiary that was not a signatory to the M.P.A.A. Along with a similar scene in "Charlie Bubbles (1968)," this helped to bring about the end of the Production Code and its replacement with a ratings system.
It has been claimed that Orson Welles directed all of his own scenes in this movie, although this has never been confirmed.
The school reunion scenes were filmed at Highgate School, Highgate, north London. Swinging on the ropes in the gym, as in this movie, was strictly forbidden in the school.