Rainer Werner Fassbinder's favorite film. He called it "perhaps the greatest film, the film that I think means as much to the history of film as Shakespeare to the history of theater."
Footage shot during the "Night of the Long Knives" sequence but never shown previously in the United States is restored in the 2004 DVD release. It is in subtitled German and expands the running time to 156 minutes.
This was the first X-rated film to be shown on American network television, although heavily edited and in a late-night time slot.