The 'Rotten Tomatoes' website summarizes this film's troubled production history by saying: ''In mid-1978, the cult fantasy guru and comic book illustrator Bill [aka William] Richert -after months directing Jeff Bridges and Belinda Bauer in the scatter-gun carnival of a political satire, 'Winter Kills' -faced a real head-scratcher. With 'Winter' yet to be completed, Richert's backer, Avco-Embassy, lopped off all funding and suspended production indefinitely. Projectless, Richert spun around, picked up an unproduced feature script by drive-in director Larry Cohen . . . and somehow found the cash to churn out a second piece of eccentricity with Bridges and Bauer in the leads, this one for Columbia Pictures -hoping he could use the latter's earnings to polish off 'Winter'. Thus began a very shaky history over the next thirty years for a little film originally called 'The American Success Company'. This ghost of a picture bombed at the box office in 1979, was later re-edited twice by Richert under distinct titles (first as 'American Success' in 1981 and then as 'Success' in 1983), and received limited theatrical distribution. It has since fallen through the cracks of movie history, never receiving official distribution on home video [sic] but popping up in bootleg versions under the titles 'Good as Gold' and 'The Ringer'.''
During principal photography the picture was shot under the title of ''The Ringer''.
This film was made to raise the money to finish the film 'Winter Kills' (1979).
When first announced in 1974, this was going to be a starring vehicle for George Segal and Vanessa Redgrave..
The film is known under a number of titles in English language speaking territories. These include: 'Success', 'American Success', 'The American Success Company', 'The Ringer' and 'Good as Gold'.