This film sunk Fox and was considered to be both a bomb as well as one of the first X-rated films ever to be released by a major studio (along with "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"). It's become a cult movie now, and it sounds as though there are a lot of stories connected to it. It would be a great subject for a book or a documentary.
Too bad Gore Vidal isn't around to write that book, which with the passage of years he might have written with wisdom of genuine hindsight. When the film came out, he acted simply embarrassed by it, as he did with the screen adaptation of Caligula. It would be interesting to see from his point of view how his novel was adapted for the movie, and for him to detail how and why it went off the tracks.
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