[1][2] The series was funded by corporate sponsor Xerox and involved many notable producers, directors, writers, and actors, including Joseph Mankiewicz, Paul Heller, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, Terence Young, Rod Serling, Ian Fleming, Peter Sellers, Theodore Bikel, Edward G. Robinson, Alan Bates, Melvyn Douglas, Yul Brynner, Omar Sharif, Eli Wallach, Marcello Mastroianni, Rita Hayworth, and Princess Grace of Monaco.
[4] Paul G. Hoffman, then the director of the UN Special Fund, believed that educating the American public about the work of the UN through television dramas would increase popular support for the organization.
[12][13] Early publicity listed filmmakers Peter Glenville, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Joseph Mankiewicz, Otto Preminger, Robert Rossen, George Sidney, Sam Spiegel, Terence Young, and Fred Zinnemann as being involved with the project.
[1] According to Edgar Rosenberg and screenwriter Rod Serling, Telsun had trouble getting actors to commit to the films due to conflicts, presumably with more lucrative work.
However, CBS withdrew from the project, citing concerns that the programs' expected pro-UN stance would constitute a political position, forcing the network to give equal air time to opponents of the UN.
[1] Production was started on a fifth film entitled The Kashmir Story, produced by Sam Spiegel and written by Nunnally Johnson, focusing on UN peacekeeping efforts along the India-Pakistan border.
Saturday Review also cited a Roper poll conducted after the first two programs showing that approximately three out of four adult Americans who were aware of the UN series generally supported its broadcast.
[1] ABC and other media outlets such as The New York Times and TV Guide also received letters opposing or supporting the series on political grounds.
[19][36] By the third film, the screwball comedy Once Upon a Tractor, the promotional information about the UN had been made more subtle, causing at least one critic to complain that this approach was less likely than the previous polemical style to convert viewers opposed to the UN.
"[22] Despite negative critical response, three of the four films received Emmy Award nominations,[45][46][47][48][49] resulting in one win by Eli Wallach for "Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Drama" in The Poppy Is Also a Flower.
[6] According to TV historian Mitchell Hadley, Telsun also owned the U.S. distribution rights to Torre Nilsson's 1967 Argentine drama film Monday's Child (also known as La chica del lunes), starring Arthur Kennedy and Geraldine Page.
The film tells the story of an American family working on a flood relief effort in Puerto Rico who go searching for the daughter's doll that was donated to refugees.