Tennessee Williams stated that this was the best movie version of any of his plays that was ever produced. The rest of the world did not seem to agree, for the monumentally expensive production bombed at the box office.
Christopher Flanders, as envisioned, was a young poet, and Richard Burton was considered by most to be terribly miscast, as well as too old for the part. The failure of this movie seriously damaged Dame Elizabeth Taylor's standing at the box office, though Burton had another major hit with Where Eagles Dare (1968) after the fiasco of its drubbing by critics and movie audiences.
James Fox was originally supposed to play Chris Flanders, but Dame Elizabeth Taylor insisted that her husband Richard Burton be cast instead. This was despite the fact that at 42, Burton was much older than the twenty-something character.
The first mainstream British movie to include the expletive "shit" in its dialogue.
Despite the Broadway failures of the 1963 play "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" and its revival in 1964, it was thought that Dame Elizabeth Taylor and Tennessee Williams were an irresistible combination, after the success of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), both of which won Taylor Oscar nominations as Best Actress. As it turned out, the combination was resistible.
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