Background to The Extraordinary Seaman

At the time MGM was making The Extraordinary Seaman, it was on its last legs as a real movie studio. I read at the time of the movie's release that the print the studio had, when the movie shoot was over, was 68 minutes, a running time okay in 1925 but very bad in 1968. There were going to be no more reshoots at MGM's Culver City studio, formally called "Retake Valley." Kirk Kerkorian had bought control of MGM and he was in the process of cannibalizing its assets - its film library, its backlot and its warehouses of props - to finance the construction of his Bally Grand casino-hotel in Las Vegas. So, movie production staff that had worked as payroll employees for MGM for decades would shortly get the axe as the studio shut down most production activity. It must have been a grim experience for those long term employees to witness the demise of a once-great studio that now no longer had the money to complete one of its last productions.