This was the first film ever shown on HBO when the service premiered in 1972.
Just before its release, a love scene between Michael Sarrazin and Lee Remick that supposedly included nudity was cut. In the final cut, their affair is only insinuated.
The title comes from lines in the folk song "Goodnight, Irene": "Sometimes I take a great notion / To jump in the river and drown."
Richard Colla was fired because of his own way of filming technicalities. Paul Newman accepted to direct, but admitted that directing and acting in the same time was pretty hard.