Trivia / The Human Factor

• Billing Displacement: Despite appearing for a brief single scene in the film's opening, John Gielgud gets higher billing in the opening credits than many actors with much larger roles.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $5 million. Box office, $376,050. It was barely distributed, Otto Preminger never directed again (he'd directed nothing but bombs since the mid-1960s, and furthermore, he was rumored to have been already showing early signs of his later Alzheimer's related dementia at the time the film was made), and several members of the cast didn't get paid.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Also What Could Have Been. Preminger originally wanted to cast author and member of parliament Jeffrey Archer as Castle, a role that eventually went to Nicol Williamson after Archer's audition read didn't go well.
• Playing Against Type: Casting hellraiser Nicol Williamson as the quiet, meek, and mild-mannered Castle and the refined Derek Jacobi as trouble-maker, hard drinker, and playboy Davis.
• Troubled Production: Otto Preminger had difficulty finding funding for the film and had to pay for much of it out of pocket. Additionally, his direction was often muddled and confusing because (unknown to him and his colleagues), Preminger was suffering from mild cognitive impairment from the earliest stages of Alzheimer's.