Production
The audience sees four lampoons of film styles as interludes in the story. In order, we see lampoons of silent film comedy, French New Wave with jump cuts, Ross Hunter fashion-heavy eye-candy films, big 1940's Hollywood musicals, and a spoof of Cleopatra.
Originally intended as a Marilyn Monroe vehicle: recast after her death.
Shirley MacLaine was quoted as saying that she was happy to work with "Edith Head with a $500,000 budget, seventy-two hairstylists to match the gowns, and a three-and-a-half-million-dollar gem collection loaned out by Harry Winston of New York. Pretty good perks, I'd say."
Robert Mitchum's role was originally meant for Frank Sinatra but Sinatra suddenly wanted several times more money than what the other male leads received. The studio refused Sinatra's demands; Gregory Peck was sought but he was unavailable. Shirley MacLaine recommended Mitchum to director J. Lee Thompson who recommended him to the studio.
Read more about this topic: What A Way To Go!
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The repossession by women of our bodies will bring far more essential change to human society than the seizing of the means of production by workers.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)