 Before filming started, Anthony Hopkins (qv) scoured the bookshops  of Londons Charing Cross Road trying to find a copy of the novel by  George Feifer (qv), upon which this film was based. He had no luck  and went to catch a train home. There at the station, lying  forgotten on a bench, was a copy of the book. Years later, Hopkins  met Feifer, who told him that he had lent his own copy to a friend,  who then lost it. Hopkins produced the one he found and asked if it  was his. By an amazing coincidence, it was the authors own book  Hopkins had chanced upon.