This movie was the first film
Patricia Neal made after suffering three massive and near-fatal strokes early in 1965. Neal was in a coma for two-and-a-half weeks and underwent emergency brain surgery. Paralyzed on her right side and unable to talk, she had to learn how to use her limbs again, how to speak again, and had to relearn the alphabet in order to spell the simplest of words. By early 1967, her recovery was so remarkable that it was difficult to tell that she'd suffered a stroke, although Neal admitted to still having memory problems. In April 1968, while shooting this film in an old warehouse on Manhattan's West 26th Street, Neal reflected on her ordeal to critic
Rex Reed: "I hated life for a year and a half, then I started learning how to be a person again, and now I've loved life for a year and a half. And I love it a lot."
