Cast member Harry Secombe later said "it's the kind of film you'd take your kids to see... and then leave them there".
This was the last project for which Margaret Rutherford was contracted, but because of her poor memory at the time, she was replaced before shooting began.
ABC Pictures wrote off a total in excess of $1 million after the film's box office failure.
The public's obsession with big budget roadshow musicals was coming to an end by the close of the 1960s. A string of box office failures, including Song of Norway (1970), along with Camelot (1967), Disney's The Happiest Millionaire (1967), Paint Your Wagon (1969), Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Darling Lili (1970), effectively put paid to the genre. Notable exceptions that found an audience during this period were Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and Cabaret (1972), both of which were established theatrical hits.
This elicited the now-famous quote from Pauline Kael in her review: "To criticize this movie is like tripping a dwarf".