The release of the film was overshadowed somewhat by the huge success of Hammer's "The Curse of Frankenstein", released the same year, and it was a relative financial failure, a fact Val Guest attributed to the intelligence of the script, saying, "It was too subtle and I also think it had too much to say. No one was expecting films from Hammer that said anything but this one did...audiences didn't want that sort of thing from Hammer. This was the last film Hammer made in association with Robert L. Lippert; following the success of "The Curse of Frankenstein", Hammer was now in a position to be able to deal directly with the major American distributors.