This film was a disaster at the box office for MGM, resulting in a loss of $2,372,000 ($19.2M in 2017) according to studio records. It never got a cinema release in the UK.
Actually, while it is true that the film did not get a general release in the UK, it did play for two weeks from January 18th 1962 at MGM's Ritz, Leicester Square, London.
Like many of her contemporaries, such as Claudette Colbert and Jean Arthur, Susan Hayward was photographed almost exclusively from the left side, usually the preferred left three-quarters angle.
The governor's car, which is blown up, but seen later intact, is a 1939 LaSalle 4-door sedan.
MGM acquired the film rights to the novel even before it was published in October 1959, and announced Elizabeth Taylor was being sought as the lead. Subsequently, an article in the 12 February 1960 edition of Daily Variety announced Ava Gardner and Robert Mitchum were the planned leads.
The premise - corrupt political boss, his puppet candidate, and the unsavory past of the candidate's wife - is similar to that of Flamingo Road (1949).