John Huston, who had long suffered from emphysema, personally asked Robert Mitchum to take his part in this film after he was hospitalized with pneumonia. Mitchum filmed the role during a break from Ricordi di guerra (1988).
The Judge in the courtroom scene was an actual Rhode Island Superior Court Judge, not a professional actor. Judge Needham oversaw the first attempted murder trial of Claus von Bulow which took place in Newport, RI in 1982.
In one particular scene, the character played by Harry Dean Stanton keeps mentioning that the town as a death watch for the elderly. Stanton previously appeared in La mort en direct (1980).