After four attempts to destroy the negatives, Claude Lelouch eventually succeeded in 1964, within fifteen days of the success of Une fille et des fusils. Les Grands Moments was a parody of the James Bond style of the period, but the film never found a distributor, and Lelouch thought the film was so bad that he attempted to destroy the negatives of the film, so that it would never be shown. Lelouch then drove all night, stopping only in Deauville, where he saw a couple on a beach, who gave him the idea for a film, that went on to become A Man and a Woman.
Janine Magnan was the partner of Lelouch at the time.
