The film stars William Holden and Audrey Hepburn, with Grégoire Aslan, Raymond Bussières, Noël Coward, and Tony Curtis.

Gabrielle Simpson, a temp secretary Benson hired to type the script, arrives at Richard's hotel room, only to discover that little has been written.

They imagine various scenarios for his screenplay, The Girl Who Stole the Eiffel Tower, which is based on their unfolding romance as Gabrielle goes back and forth between thinking Richard is a good man and her budding attraction to him, and her hesitancy when considering he described himself as a "liar and a thief" for taking Meyerheim's money and not delivering the script earlier.

Holden, having had an affair with Hepburn during the making of Sabrina a decade earlier and been in love with her ever since, attempted without success to rekindle a romance with the now-married actress.

And I didn’t think I could handle either situation.Curtis was brought into the production to film during a week when Holden was undergoing treatment for his alcoholism at the prompting of the director.

The films shared several locations, most notably a Punch and Judy puppet theatre in the park in front of the Théâtre Marigny.

Though shooting finished in October 1962, a screening at Paramount led the studio to deem the film unreleasable with the exception of the attraction of its two stars.

[3] In February 1964, Dell Publishing issued a paperback novelization (with a cover price of 40¢) by then-veteran tie-in author Saul Cooper.