According to Robert Evans's biography, "The Kid Stays in the Picture", this film was made as the result of a bet between Evans and Henry Miller in which Miller won.
Along with the English-language Danish film Stille Tage in Clichy (1970), the first film to contain the word "cunt" in its dialogue.
The film was refused a UK cinema certificate in 1970. It has never been resubmitted to the BBFC, though the film was shown on Sky TV in 1990.
Rejected by the British Board of Film Censors on 29 May 1970, but opened anyway at the Cinecenta, Panton Street SW1 on 1 October 1970, courtesy of a local "X" certificate from the Greater London Council. Elsewhere, Paramount struggled to get the film seen by a wide audience. Passed by the East Suffolk County Council the following year, the East Anglia premiere was at the Mayfair Cinema, Bungay on 3 October 1971, before going on to the Regal, Stowmarket and the Cinema, Woodbridge. This was the third Joseph Strick film to be rejected by the BBFC, following similar rulings on Der Balkon (1963) and Ulysses (1967).