It was not so much the box-office failure as the complete and utter critical savaging of this movie - a reception that could only be termed as "disastrous" - that wrecked the careers of writer and director Michael Sarne and Roger Herren. The critical and financial flop also seriously hurt Raquel Welch, who never achieved the true star status that had been predicted for her.
Bette Davis emphatically turned down the role of Leticia Van Allen, expressing her contempt for the book.
In a book about the making of this movie, producer David Giler said that he came to the set one day to find out why filming was so far behind schedule and discovered that the entire cast and crew had been kept sitting around most of the day (on full salary) while writer and director Michael Sarne photographed a cake for eight hours. He was also told by cast and crew members that Sarne would go off in a corner and "think" for six to seven hours at a stretch, during which time shooting would come to a standstill. According to Giler, such antics were one of the reasons that this movie went so far over budget, and he and the other producer demanded that the studio fire him, but it was in Sarne's contract that he could not be fired until he turned in the first cut.
It was Lee Majors who got then-girlfriend Farrah Fawcett involved in this movie. He was sought for the role of Rusty but turned it down. However, he did introduce the producers to Fawcett, who had done several television commercials by that time, and she was hired to play Mary Ann. She later told Rona Barrett, "It was a terrible picture. But it taught me a lot about egos and star-trips. Everyone was on that!"
Raquel Welch made fun of this movie on a talk show and on this movie's DVD commentary, where she ruthlessly ripped into it and her own acting.