Former mob capo turned motivational speaker Michael Franzese of the Colombo crime family, who worked with John Gotti of the Gambino crime family, considers this the most accurate mafia movie he has ever seen.
This was the highest-rated original telefilm in HBO history at that time.
The film was originally intended for a theatrical release, but fell short on funding.
Two actors had real-life associations to real New York mobsters. Marc Lawrence was friends with Charles "Lucky" Luciano, visiting him in Italy after Luciano was released from prison and deported. Anthony Quinn was friends with Frank Costello, Lucky's former under boss, after Costello retired from the mob. Both actors had appeared in Alba fatale (1943), 54 years before this movie was made.
Frank Vincent would later appear in Witness to the Mob (1998) as Frank DeCicco, another mobster who was murdered almost two months earlier before DiBernardo, in the same year of 1986, on April 13.