Burt Lancaster, who headlined the movie above the title with Dean Martin, made a great deal of money from the film, which was a huge hit. His contract gave him a 10% profit participation once the movie hit $50 million; it grossed $45.3 million in North America alone. Despite the financial windfall, Lancaster said that the movie was "the worst piece of junk ever made." He said he only made this film in return for the studio agreeing to finance several non-commercial films, in which he was interested. Lancaster added it was a joke that this film was nominated for any awards at all.
As was customary in 1969 when this movie was being filmed, Universal Studios kept a roster of contract players who could take small speaking parts in various film and television programs on an as-needed basis. Thus, these actors would appear frequently in different projects in small roles, sometimes showing up in the same program at the same time. This film features thirty-two of these contract players who also appear in the television series Dragnet 1967 (1967), which was also being produced at Universal at the time.
The field and terminal scenes were filmed entirely at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, due to the abundance of snowfall during the winter months there, although at first, the film's producers were forced to use bleached sawdust as a supplement, to make up for the lack of falling snow, until a snowstorm hit the Twin Cities area during production.
The Boeing 707 (a 707-349C, serial #19351-the 503rd 707 off the production line-originally registered N324F), was leased to Universal Pictures from Flying Tiger Airlines (now merged with FedEx) for the filming of the exterior shots. After filming was completed, the aircraft returned to Flying Tiger and was later sold, going through various owners before meeting a tragic end: it crashed while on landing approach on 21 March 1989, in São Paulo, Brazil.