According to Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy had little to no experience gambling prior to making this film. Although another source states Demy decided to make the movie after winning a large bet placed on the number 17. Jackie's lucky number is also 17.
It was at a screening of this film in California that producer Roger Corman and film-writer Peter Bogdanovich found themselves sitting near each other. At the end of the film, they began talking and formed a friendship which ultimately led to Corman offering Bogdanovich the chance to direct his first film, Targets (1968), starring Boris Karloff.
One of the earliest films to treat gambling as an addiction rather than an amusing pastime or an element of the criminal underworld.
Jeanne Moreau spoke about this movie as being about, "gambling and gambling is a very special way of handling one's life. The same as alcohol or bulimia, it is a way of refusing to face the facts of life and giving yourself up to an addiction. But I don't think of it as a disease. Gambling can be exciting, like everything, as long as you can get hold of it. It's like riding a wild horse. You have to be very, very strong. If you are incapable of riding a wild horse, don't jump on it. Everything that has to do with human passion is fascinating, as long as it doesn't make you a prisoner."
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