The film was made for a budget of about $1.8 million, but it became Billy Wilder""s first major financial box-office disaster since he began a long string of hits beginning in the early 1940s.The assault tactic worked as theFalcontargeted the enemy, and then veered off and vanished completely.Krendler arrived for the Fourth of July weekend at his home, where he was surprised to find the dining room table set for an elegant dinner.He asked: "How did everything that was so good get so bad?...I wrecked everything by not thinking for myself." He still felt that his previous fights (before Lang""s challenge) were Mickey""s set-ups that deceived him about how good he was ("I never fought anybody who was in their prime"), although Mickey was only protecting him from harm ("You wake up after a few years thinking you""re a winner, but you""re not.