[1] The film uses ten languages: Spanish, French, Swedish, German, Finnish, Italian, English, Russian, Norwegian and Latin.

The film is very loosely based on Pablo Picasso's life, narrated by Toivo Pawlo, who introduces himself as Elsa Beskow.

When he returns home with a portrait of his mother Dona Maria (Margaretha Krook), he is equally praised there.

This lady is none other than the great writer Gertrude Stein (Bernard Cribbins), who is attending the vernissage with her companion Alice B. Toklas (Wilfrid Brambell).

Along with names like Braque, Matisse, Fernand Léger, Pompidou, Entrecôte, Carl Larsson, Karl-Alfred, Loulou, Dodo, Jou-Jou, Clo-Clo, Margot, Frou Frou, Jenny Nyström, Hejsan-Tjosan, Corselet, Omelette and Rembrandt (most of these names are just nonsense and mean other things than you might suspect).

The Paris artworld also included Hemingway, who enjoys knitting, Erik Satie, Guillaume Apollinaire, Henri Rousseau, Vincent van Gogh and no less than two Toulouse-Lautrec.

Along with Mimi, a waitress who gave Puccini the inspiration to "Thy tiny hand is frozen", the reason for this being that she is carrying a wine cooler.

Although the Swedish American multimillionaire Ingrid Svensson-Guggenheim (Birgitta Andersson) doesn't understand Picasso's art, she knows that it is expensive, and therefore immortal.

Now it's 1914 and Picasso and all of humanity is looking forward to a bright future full of liberty, equality and fraternity.

Picasso returns to Paris, where he meets Sirkka (Lena Nyman), a Finnish singer who sings a song that he becomes enchanted by.

However, when it turns out that that song (which is essentially a recipe for making a kalakukko (the equivalent of the Russian rybnik or kurnik)) is the only one Sirkka's got on her repertoire, Picasso soon gets sick of it and leaves for New York City with his father.

Don Jose, acting as Pablo's lawyer tries to defend his son, stating that Picasso's work is not art, but childish graffiti.

The chair refuses to work however, and the electrician, a Norwegian named Grieg (Rolv Wesenlund), is sent in to fix it.

Inspired by them Picasso sends his doves (animated birds) out in a world plagued by the Cold War.

After drinking the last of the ink in the magic bottle Dolores gave him years ago, he falls asleep and dies.

Using a glasspainting in front of the camera and changing a few things on the set, the filmmakers could turn the little street of Tomelilla into all the big cities shown in this film.

According to the movie's commentary track by Gösta Ekman, some of the paintings were saved by the cast and crew who now keep them in their houses.

Years after the movie's release, when Gösta Ekman went to Budapest on vacation, he found that people looked at him in a very odd way.

Hans Alfredson, who wrote the script along with Tage Danielsson and also starred as Pablo's father, has seen the play and liked it.