Early in this movie, Henri Gaudier (Scott Antony) is seen in the employ of a certain Mr. Saltzman (Otto Diamant), who hires him, not to create original works as he would like, but to make copies of other people's work. This may be a private joke on producer and director Ken Russell's part, as the producer Harry Saltzman had some years earlier hired him, ostensibly with a view to producing one of Russell's personal projects (a movie about Tchaikowsky), but in fact to make the third movie in the "Harry Palmer" film franchise, Billion Dollar Brain (1967). Russell eventually made the Tchaikowsky movie (The Music Lovers (1971)) without Saltzman.
In order to save money, copies of uncopyrighted Soviet recordings of Claude Debussy and Aleksandr Skryabin were made.
Scott Antony only appeared in two other theatrical movies.
A sequence featuring producer and director Ken Russell was shot, but later scrapped. He can still be seen getting off a train car in the railway station segment.
Helen Mirren made the film because she wanted to work with Ken Russell, but claimed to be disappointed with the result.