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Michelangelo Antonioni's original ending was a shot of an airplane sky-writing the phrase "Fuck You, America," which was cut by MGM president Louis F. Polk along with numerous other scenes. Louis F. Polk was eventually replaced by James T. Aubrey, who had most of the cut footage restored, but without this final shot.
Antonioni met with Jim Morrison during early production to ask for a musical contribution to the soundtrack. Morrison and the Doors provided "L'America" which Antonioni then rejected.
Michelangelo Antonioni's assistant and casting director, Sally Dennison, first spotted Mark Frechette having an argument with a woman at a bus stop in Los Angeles. Frechette was not an actor but a carpenter at the time so when Dennison brought him to Antonioni's attention, she told him "He's twenty and he hates". Antonioni cast him on the spot.
On March 8, 1967, Hail Thomas Hansen, 20, took a private plane from Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix, for a joy ride, flying to Tucson. When he returned to Sky Harbor early in the morning of March 9, the Phoenix police were waiting for him. Hansen was shot and killed. Antonioni used elements of this story in his screen play. For additional details of Hansen's death, see "Tucson Daily Citizen," March 10, 1967 (page 2) and March 22, 1967 (page 18).
The house in the boulders was an actual house in Carefree, Arizona. The explosion of the house was done by recreating a mock-up of the house on the back lot of Southwestern Studios, also located in Carefree Arizona. The mock-up, costing $100,000 to construct, was exploded and filmed using seventeen cameras.
In real life, Mark Frechette led a counterculture life much like his character's in the film. Three years after the release of this film, he was imprisoned for his part in a bank hold-up in Boston. He died in prison in 1975 during a weightlifting exercise when a barbell fell on his neck.
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