This film was selected to screen in competition for the prestigious Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1982.
The cast includes two Oscar winners: Julie Christie and Glenda Jackson; and four Oscar nominees: Sir Ian Holm, Sir Alan Bates, Frank Finlay, and Ann-Margret.
This was the first movie in the U.K. to be rated by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) with the then-new PG certificate classification.
According to Vincent Canby in The New York Times, the movie was not released in the U.S. for about three years after its theatrical debut in 1982, "because of some sort of legal complications."
Sir Alan Bates and Julie Christie appeared in Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), The Go-Between (1971), and Separate Tables (1983).