Pretentious art house bomb, neglected masterpiece or inscrutable personal project for Joseph Losey? Secret Ceremony (1968) had the misfortune to follow Boom! (1968), the director's notoriously lambasted film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore starring the world's most famous celebrity couple at the time, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Equally challenging for mainstream audiences, Secret Ceremony was promoted as a kinky psychodrama with lesbian overtones and such tag lines as "It's time to speak of unspoken things" and "No one admitted the last 12 minutes." Yet, despite the presence of Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Mitchum and Mia Farrow, who had just appeared in the as-yet-unreleased Rosemary's Baby the same year, the movie was too strange, decadent and moody to hold the attention of moviegoers and critics expecting a more traditional genre film.

With Elizabeth Taylor already cast in the role of Leonora, Losey began a search for the other key players. He needed a high profile star with box office clout for the role of Albert and chose Robert Mitchum whom he had known briefly in Hollywood. Several actresses such as Marianne Faithful were considered for Cenci until screenwriter Tabori's ex-wife actress Viveca Lindfors suggested Mia Farrow, who was in the middle of a traumatic breakup with husband Frank Sinatra. Farrow was assigned the role

Elizabeth Taylor proved to be the consummate professional throughout the shoot and was loved by the cast and crew. The only time she experienced any hesitation in doing a scene was the one in which she undresses and enters the bathtub with Cenci. Dressed in only a towel, Taylor apparently froze before the cameras and the crew, unable to move until Losey offered her encouragement and cleared the set of everyone except a skeleton crew to shoot the scene.