Many critics noted that the character Edmund Purdom plays - a small-time actor who gets cast in the lead in a Hollywood epic and becomes a star overnight - bore a resemblance to Purdom himself. He went from obscurity to fame in 1954, taking on the title role in The Egyptian (1954) as a late replacement for Marlon Brando, and slipped from fame almost at once after the film proved a costly flop.
The Kenneth More character has a relationship with a much younger woman whom he nicknames "Shrimp", and who is played by Angela Douglas, some 26 years his junior. In real life, More left his wife Edith Barkby for Douglas around the time they made this film together and married her in 1968; his pet name for he was "Shrimp". They remained married until More's death in 1982.
The last film where Kenneth More was the lead.
This was one of several British films of the early Sixties whose release in cinemas was greatly delayed; it spent nearly two years on the shelf before shown in late 1964. It was usually exhibited in a double-bill with Peter Brook's film, Lord of the Flies (1963)".
It has been suggested that Kenneth More's character from this film, bore a resemblance to the actor himself. By the early 1960s, Kenneth More was no longer in demand as a leading man and struggled to secure much work until the end of the decade, when he landed the role of 'Jolyon' in the BBC's hugely successful adaption of "The Forsyte Saga".