This movie was the first film Patricia Neal made after suffering three massive and near-fatal strokes early in 1965. Neal was in a coma for two-and-a-half weeks and underwent emergency brain surgery. Paralyzed on her right side and unable to talk, she had to learn how to use her limbs again, how to speak again, and had to relearn the alphabet in order to spell the simplest of words. By early 1967, her recovery was so remarkable that it was difficult to tell that she'd suffered a stroke, although Neal admitted to still having memory problems. In April 1968, while shooting this film in an old warehouse on Manhattan's West 26th Street, Neal reflected on her ordeal to critic Rex Reed: "I hated life for a year and a half, then I started learning how to be a person again, and now I've loved life for a year and a half. And I love it a lot."
When Netty (Patricia Neal) is getting her coins from her dresser, one can see a small picture frame with an older gentleman in it. It is a picture of Neal's real-life father, William "Coot" Neal.
Martin Sheen and Jack Albertson originated their roles (Timothy Cleary and John Cleary) in the stage version on Broadway. Patricia Neal had been offered the role of Nettie in that production, but was unable to accept because she'd been pregnant at the time. Irene Dailey had originated the role of Nettie on Broadway.
Jack Albertson won Best Supporting Actor for this film on his only Academy Award nomination. He beat out his future Willy Wonka e la fabbrica di cioccolato (1971) co-star Gene Wilder, who was in the running for his role in Per favore, non toccate le vecchiette (1967).
This movie, and the original Pulitzer prize-winning play, were largely autobiographical. The interiors of the "shabby genteel" Bronx apartment in which author Frank D. Gilroy grew up were recreated for filming, which took place in a converted warehouse on Manhattan's West 26th Street. Exterior scenes were filmed in the University Heights section of the Bronx, where Gilroy spent the first eighteen years of his life before serving in World War II. The neighborhood had changed a great deal in twenty-plus years and was now "down at heel", but a number of older residents remembered the Gilroy family. For authenticity, crew members rolled back the posted prices in the window of a vegetable store, added signs about buying War Bonds, and lined the street with period automobiles. Said one older resident, "They even cleaned up the streets. Humph, it takes a movie company to get this neighborhood cleaned up."