A 25 Jan 1967 LAT news item included an adaptation of Phillip Rock’s upcoming novel, The Extraordinary Seaman, among fourteen new projects on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s (MGM) production slate. David Niven was first attached to star, and seven days later, Var announced that John Frankenheimer had signed on to direct for producer Edward Lewis. Rock agreed to adapt his work for the screen.
       A 2 Mar 1967 DV brief suggested that Jonathan Winters was considered as one of Niven’s co-stars, while the 23 May 1967 LAT announced the casting of José Chávez, whose participation could not be confirmed in other contemporary sources. According to the 21 Mar 1967 DV, Alan Alda bowed out of his Broadway musical run in The Apple Tree from 6 Apr to 3 Jul 1967 in order to appear as “Lieut. J. G. Morton Krim.”
       Principal photography began 10 Apr 1967, as stated in a DV production chart published four days later. The 9 Mar 1967 and 31 Mar 1967 DV named locations in Yucatán and Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. The Extraordinary Seaman was one of three MGM pictures to shoot simultaneously in Mexico, contributing to the recent increase in film production in the country; a 9 Jan 1968 DV item estimated that MGM spent a total of $8 million in Mexico during 1967 alone. Almost $300,000 worth of equipment and props were shipped to the location, and the unit was expected to remain there for approximately ten weeks. Additional sources claimed filming also took place in Baja and Santa Barbara, CA, as well as the MGM studio lot in Culver City. An 18 Apr 1969 DV advertisement revealed that Tyler Camera Systems was involved in the aerial photography.
       Toward the end of production, the 21 Jul 1967 DV announced that MGM had decided to add the subtitle, “Or How I Lost World Wars I, II and Given a Decent Chance—III,” but this was not corroborated by other contemporary news items. The 17 Jan 1969 DV review revealed that the picture contains at least ten minutes of newsreel footage, which included shots of Bess Truman, Dorothy Lamour, Errol Flynn, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Douglas MacArthur. A 28 Feb 1968 DV brief stated that the release date had been delayed while filmmakers underwent the process of matching the material to the rest of the color Panavision footage. The story is broken into segments, each titled to match five of U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s six installments of his World War II memoirs: “Grand Alliance,” “The Gathering Storm,” “Their Finest Hour,” “The Hinge of Fate,” and “Triumph and Tragedy.”
       Despite the high profile of director John Frankenheimer and the popularity of Faye Dunaway following her star turn in Bonnie and Clyde (1967, see entry), The Extraordinary Seaman was poorly received by critics and not distributed for a large scale release. Var box-office reports indicated scattered local openings in Philadelphia, PA; St. Louis, MO; San Francisco, CA; Dayton, OH; and Boston, MA, from mid-Feb to Mar 1969, while the 3 Feb 1969 DV noted that actor Jack Carter had also been assigned to promote the picture in Chicago, IL, from 13-14 Feb 1969, culminating in a benefit dinner and screening, for which he was the guest of honor. Although an exact release date could not be found in contemporary documents, theater listings for the Los Angeles area first appeared in the 2 Jul 1969 LAT.