Gould manage to sell the film to Richard Zanuck, head of Fox, who had made "MASH" and "Move" with Gould. Zanuck agreed to finance the film for $1.4 million. Gould's salary was $200,000 but this was deferred until after the film made a profit. Arkin said the film was "about the human condition". Filming began in April 1970 and finished June 11, $100,000 under budget. "Frankly, I'm scared what we did," said Arkin, "particularly the last ten minutes." Feiffer later said "there were all sorts of problems" with Arkin on the film "although we had worked together very happily on the play. And it was by no means collaborative. He really wanted nothing to do with me. I had very little input into how that movie came out, and some of it is good and some of it isn’t." Feiffer said he was not pleased with the film. "I think that’s not his fault, entirely, it’s also mine. I made compromises on the screenplay that were not his idea, they were my own. I was inexperienced, and they were dumb ideas. But then there were things that were his fault. Some of his casting. The style of the film, which worked very well on stage, but wasn’t appropriate for film, I don’t think." The film was given a limited release to allow critical reception to grow. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film a perfect four stars and wrote, "One of the reasons it works, and is indeed a definitive reflection of America's darker moods, is that it breaks audiences down into isolated individuals, vulnerable and uncertain. Most movies create a temporary sort of democracy, a community of strangers there in the darkened theater. Not this one. The movie seems to be saying that New York City has a similar effect on its citizens, and that it will get you if you don't watch out." Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" also awarded his top grade of four stars and called it "a mean little comedy that made me laugh and then think, 'God, how could I laugh at that.'" Roger Greenspun of "The New York Times" wrote, "Essentially 'Little Murders' constructs its world from the point of view of someone sitting behind the locked doors of an apartment on the Upper West Side—and so long as it maintains the conditions of that point of view it works—dramatically, cinematically, whatever way you will.