Film critic Roger Ebert states in his review of this film that he interviewed director Roddy McDowall who said that he made it because he wanted to make a tribute to Ava Gardner, and that the movie was a gesture of love.
It was due to his directing this film that Roddy McDowall was unable to reprise his role as Cornelius in Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), the only one of the five original "Planet of the Apes" films from which he is absent.
Roddy McDowall first worked with screenwriter William Spier in 1947, when McDowall was a child actor appearing on the popular radio series "Suspense", which Spier produced and directed.
Two years later, star Ava Gardner and director Roddy McDowall would both appear in their only movie together as actors, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972).