Director Pat O'Connor and actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio met while working on this project and were later married in 1990.
The film's technical advisor Ed Zigo was the captor of the notorious ''Son of Sam'' serial killer and former detective in the 10th Homicide Squad of the NYPD (New York Police Department) according to an article published in the 15th January 1989 edition of 'The New York Times' newspaper. He took the cast and crew on a tour of some of this city's precincts including the 5th Precinct in Little Italy, the 6th Precinct in Greenwich Village and the 60th Precinct in Brooklyn's Red Hook district.
The fire sequence featured three alarms and almost two dozen "off-duty Toronto firefighters" utilizing special window frames and a 2,000-gallon propane tank. The major set piece took two nights to prep in a downtown three story building by a 14-man special effects unit.
In 1990, film critic Roger Ebert said in his movie review of the picture that it was "one of the worst films of all time".