Quiz

This film was originally to be directed by Michael Mann. Upon working on episodes of numerous TV shows during 1976-1978, Mann was given the chance to direct an episode of Pepper Anderson agente speciale (1974) (The Buttercup Killer (1977)). Impressed with his directorial work, ABC told Mann he could search through their archive of unproduced scripts to see if there was anything he wished to make as a Movie of the Week. Mann picked out the Jeffrey Bloom script, Swan Song. He rewrote it and went into preproduction. David Soul came on board as star and producer, and the film was set to go into production when Soul suffered a spinal injury. The project was put on hiatus, and Mann went back to find another script, eventually deciding on Patrick J. Nolan's La corsa di Jericho (1979). When Swan Song went back into production in 1980, Mann wasn't involved in the project, and the script was rewritten by Ron Koslow, although both Mann and Bloom still received writing credits

Jesse's (David Soul) line "They haven't invented the hard time that I ain't prepared to handle" is almost exactly the same as Beedan's (Dennis Haysbert) line "There ain't been a hard time invented that I cannot handle" in Heat - La sfida (1995), also written by Michael Mann. A variation of the line is also found in La corsa di Jericho (1979) when Murphy (Peter Strauss) says "Are you gonna tell me they invented a hard time you can't handle?" The Jericho Mile was also written and directed by Mann. The line is also used by Gina (Saundra Santiago) in an episode of Miami Vice (1984) (Give a Little, Take a Little (1984)) and by Julie Torello (Darlanne Fluegel) in the pilot episode of Crime Story (1986); both shows were executive produced by Mann.