During the swimming scene at the pool, Hesh-Ke was supposed to be topless with a loincloth. In an interview, Julie Newmar stated that at the last minute she decided to do the scene fully nude and no one, especially the actors and crew, argued with her about the decision.
The pool and waterfall where part of the action takes place was man-made and the water had to be hauled in by tanker truck.
Filming for this movie prevented Julie Newmar from appearing as Catwoman in the third season of Batman (1966); she was replaced by Eartha Kitt.
Although not well received by critics and audiences, this movie was released internationally to some success. The movie was popular in the Soviet Union. It was first shown at the VIII Moscow International Film Festival in 1973, followed by a cinematic premiere in 1974. It was viewed by sixty-three million people, and now stands fourth in the all-time rating of a foreign film distribution in the Soviet Union. The title song "Old Turkey Buzzard" was dubbed with Russian lyrics by Leonid Derbenyov, a Russian poet and lyricist widely regarded as one of the stalwarts of Soviet pop music. It was performed by then-popular Soviet singer Valeri Obodzinsky.
This movie originally was planned to be shown in single lens Cinerama with reserved seat roadshow engagements, but Columbia executives changed their minds and pulled the plug on that idea. This movie was drastically cut down from nearly three hours (plus an intermission) to just over two hours. Although most of the movie was photographed on 65mm stock, to save money, a handful of scenes were filmed in 35mm anamorphic and then optically blown up with disastrous results. The blown up scenes are exceedingly grainy and have bad color.
J. Lee Thompson: [cast] This film reunites the director with Gregory Peck and Sir Anthony Quayle, who all had worked together on The Guns of Navarone (1961). Peck and Telly Savalas were also in Thompson's Cape Fear (1962).