After screening this film, Nico Jacobellis, manager of the Heights Art Theater in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, was charged with and convicted of possessing and exhibiting an obscene film. He appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court, which overturned the convictions, ruling that the film was not obscene. In a concurring opinion, Justice Potter Stewart made his famous pronouncement concerning what was pornography: "I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring).
The "Carte du Tendre" map used under the opening credits, a kind of map of the geography of Love, was the creation of the 17th Century French philosopher Madeleine de Scudery.
This film is part of the Criterion Collection, spine #429.
Jeanne Moreau starred in four films directed by Louis Malle: "Elevator to the Gallows" (1958), "The Lovers" (1958), "The Fire Within" (1963), and "Viva Maria!" (1965).