Robert Mitchum replaced William Holden. Holden was being considered for this picture but passed away shortly before the film started production and could accept the part.
At the premiere Robert Mitchum assaulted a female reporter and threw a basketball that he was holding (a prop from the film) at a female photographer from "Time" magazine, smashing a camera into her face and knocking two of her teeth out. She sued him for $30 million for damages. He eventually paid her his salary from the film.
Robert Mitchum was accused of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial after he gave an interview to "Esquire" magazine in February 1983. He later claimed he had been reciting the views of his character from this film, and the interviewer had failed to realize this.
Jason Miller was working as an actor on the set of The Exorcist (1973) and engrossed in his priest role when he was informed that he had won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for writing this film's source play "That Championship Season".