Trivia

The Love Machine

The painting that Robin Stone (John Phillip Law) studies in Gregory Austin's office is Pablo Picasso's work "Sleeping Drinker" (1901).

The June 1969 edition of publication 'Publishers Weekly' reported that the movie rights to Jacqueline Susann's novel 'The Love Machine' were acquired by this film's producer M.J. Frankovich for a base payment of US $1,500,000 against 10% of the movie's gross box office take. Apparently, this was a record buy for film rights to a book at the time. (Jacqueline Susann had sold the film rights to her first novel, "Valley Of The Dolls", for $85,000, in advance of publication. When it turned out to be a big best-seller, she was very peeved at not having been paid more, and she and her agent husband Irving Mansfield were very careful about the sale of future film rights and also were involved in the production of the films).

It was generally conceded that the inspiration for the Robin Stone character was the controversial (some would say infamous) television executive James T. Aubrey, known as The Smiling Cobra. Aubrey was also in charge of a movie studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, for a few years in the early 1970s, and is often said to have destroyed that studio.

For Dyan Cannon, the campy scene where her character gets in a fight with a couple of homosexuals was a case of art imitating life. In 1964, during the national touring company of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", Cannon had a backstage quarrel with gay actor Dick Kallman. "He was crazy," she said. During one of their matches, Kallman slammed a door on her hand. She still has a scar on her finger.

John Phillip Law replaced Brian Kelly in the central role of Robin Stone. Law was a last-minute substitute for Kelly, who less than two weeks prior to shooting was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident that almost killed him. Law, considerably taller than Kelly, was compelled to wear some of Kelly's original wardrobe, and the too-short clothes are apparent in the final film. Jacqueline Susann had earlier said of Kelly that he was "the perfect Robin Stone".