Critics were overwhelmingly negative when the film came out, and it was the consensus that
Elia Kazan should never have filmed his own best-selling novel, which was panned by most literary critics as trash when it was published in 1967. It was widely known that the lead role had been turned down by
Marlon Brando, who had garnered three Academy Award nominations and was awarded one Oscar under Kazan's direction at the beginning of his film career and was the heart and soul of some of Kazan's best work as a movie director. By the late 1960s, after a string of flops, most critics felt Brando was through as a movie star and that he desperately needed Kazan to turn his career around, both as an artist and as a box-office star. When the film came out,
Kirk Douglas' lead performance was roundly panned, and most critics felt that even Brando at his best couldn't save what was, in essence, a melodramatic potboiler. The failure of "The Arrangement" was the end of Kazan's own career as an A-list director.
