roman polanski talks about production difficulties in his autobiography: "our first month's outdoor filming became a series of ingenious improvisations, mainly because the last-minute switch from one location (austria) to another (urtijëi, an italian ski resort in the dolomites) had left us so little time to revise our shooting schedules. the fact that we were filming in italy entailed the employment of a certain number of italian technicians and that, in turn bred some international friction. gene gutowski (the film's european producer) rightly suspected that the italians were robbing us blind."