After a movie hiatus of four years, this was supposed to be Hildegard Knef's big comeback film. (She had been active on Broadway between 1954 and 1956, then took one year off.) It turned out to be one of the greatest flops German cinema had ever seen and ruined Knef's career. After "Madeleine und der Legionär", she was unable to find work in Germany again for several years and had to appear in a string of B and C movies shot in Italy, France and England. In 2001, she told an interviewer that "Madeleine und der Legionär" was still her least favorite of all the films she had done.