Having lost creative control of his music after the commercial failures of his previous two studio albums Scott 4 and 'Til the Band Comes In, Walker was tasked with recording "inoffensive, middle-of-the-road material that could be easily processed, marketed and sold".

[1] The album was recorded quickly in the summer of 1972 with Walker's usual studio team consisting of producer Johnny Franz and engineer Peter J. Olliff.

Series album, all of which were made up entirely of cover versions and which he describes in the documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man as his "wilderness years".

In their Walker biography A Deep Shade of Blue, Mike Watkinson and Pete Anderson recommend the album to only the most die-hard of Scott Walker fans,[1] but cite "The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti" as the album's undoubted highlight for its Spaghetti-Western feel vaguely reminiscent of "The Seventh Seal" from Scott 4.

[1] Stephen Thomas Erlewine writing retrospectively for Allmusic summarises The Moviegoer as a "harmless mainstream pop album [delivered] without much care".