Trivia / A Fine Mess

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $15 million. Box office, $6,029,824.
• Creator Backlash: Blake Edwards claimed to not remember much about the process of making the movie and told people not to see it.
• Executive Meddling: The film was conceived with an entirely different premise, but problems with the studio are among the reasons why it eventually turned into the scripted chase comedy that was released.
• Fake Nationality: Cuban-Venezuelan Maria Conchita Alonso playing Italian Claudia Pazzo.
• Real-Life Relative: Ellen is played by director Blake Edwards' daughter.
• What Could Have Been: The film was originally intended as a heavily improvised homage to Laurel and Hardy's 1932 short The Music Box (the title being taken from Hardy's catchphrase, "That's another fine mess you've gotten us into!", and the piano delivery plot are all that is left from it) with Richard Pryor and Burt Reynolds as the leads, in the spirit of Edwards' The Party. Problems with the studio are among the reasons why it eventually turned into the scripted chase comedy that was released.