This was going to be the first movie shown in the new John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. It was cancelled because the plot of the movie was judged to be inappropriate. This caused a big controversy. A Washington D.C. television station took advantage of the controversy by acquiring the broadcast rights to the film and showing it uncut after running a big advertising campaign calling it the "film banned from the Kennedy Center."
Ironically, the film was released a year before Chile witnessed its own violent military coup against the then favored and democratically elected President Salvador Allende by military commander Augusto Pinochet.
Yves Montand's character is based on Dan Mitrione, a government advisor working for the CIA in Latin America and whose fate was similar to the ones portrayed by Montand.
This film is part of the Criterion Collection, spine #760.
This movie is part of an informal political thrillers directed by written and directed by Costa-Gavras and starring Yves Montand, with the other two films being Z (1969) and The Confession (1970).