The film was the brainchild of writer-director Richard L. Bare, who got the idea for the Duo-Vision gimmick while driving one day, when he noticed the line that divided the road.

"My first problem was finding a typewriter with a carriage wide enough to take a legal-size piece of paper sideways, so I could type parallel scripts," Bare said.

"We needed intensity and passion as well as innocence, a combination of qualities we found to be rare among the many, many young actors we interviewed," Orr revealed.

[3] A young Vietnam veteran named Randolph Roberts was sent by his agent to audition for the role of Hank Lassiter (a minor part which ultimately went to Edd Byrnes).

David Bailey had been in a popular commercial for Mitchum deodorant in which he proclaimed, "I didn't use any antiperspirant yesterday and I may not today.

Byrnes skyrocketed to fame as "Kookie" on the popular television series 77 Sunset Strip, and became typecast as a result.

The album didn't sell well and the company backing it went out of business,[9] so Bolling continued her acting career.

"[12] Bare recognized before he began shooting that audiences would have a hard time following the movie if there was too much action playing on both sides of the screen simultaneously, and he scripted a few single-screen segments "for shock value.

"[11] Initially Bare and MGM planned to release the movie as two separate films, to be shown by two interlocked projectors on a wide theater screen, but they ultimately decided that a single piece of film would give them a larger market, so they squeezed both images onto 35mm, projected at a unique 2.65:1 aspect ratio.

[2] They also made the highly unusual (at the time) decision to release the film in stereo, with the left and right speakers emitting dialogue "from the proper side of the screen.

"[2] Doug Thompson wrote, "The script by Bare is trite and so filled with typical screen stereotypes and clichés that it is almost comical.

"[15] Barbara Bladen wrote, "It works to keep your mind off the mindlessness of the script until the [split-screen] novelty wears off," and then she concluded, "There may be laughs to be had for someone with a strong stomach for blood but the graphic vision of the film's more grisly scenes quite choked them back on me.

"[19] Director Richard L. Bare wrote in his autobiography, "The college students were unanimous in their praise, but the picture opened quietly, played a while, and then disappeared.

[20]" According to Bare, the film received minuscule promotion because MGM owner Kirk Kerkorian was draining the company's funds to build a Las Vegas casino.