The movie was Dirk Bogarde's first film as a leading man, when he replaced Stewart Granger, who dropped out.

It is a film packed tight with 19th century hypocrisy and prejudice; so much attention is paid to detail that it becomes superfluous.

An exciting scene of Derby Day (the painting by Frith comes to life) is too late to save the general tedium of the picture, but here the film becomes breathtakingly full of movement and colour.

"[7] The Radio Times wrote: "George Moore's source novel was strongly influenced by the naturalism of Emile Zola, but there is little of the earthiness of the original in this tawdry adaptation, which rapidly plunges between the two stools of heritage production and sensationalist melodrama.

The horse-racing scenes are efficiently presented, but Ian Dalrymple and Peter Proud direct with heavy hands"[8] TV Guide called the film "A well-done but melancholy costume drama from the book by the Irish playwright and critic George Moore, a cofounder of the theatre group that led to the famous Abbey Theatre.