Director Ken Annakin recalled that ten days into pre-production of the film, then titled "The Italian Caper", a story reader from MGM discovered an old script in their archives that had the same story as the film, and that script was currently being filmed as "The Happening" by producer Sam Spiegel for Columbia Pictures. Producer Josef Shaftel met Spiegel with the result that he had to give up his 15% share of the profits, Spiegel had the power to approve every page of the shooting script, and the film, retitled "The Biggest Bundle of Them All" would not be released until six months after "The Happening" (which had a delayed release).