Roy Scheider was an eleventh hour replacement for another actor. Directly after the completion of the shooting, he traveled to Martha's Vineyard to film Tubarão (1975).
Jeanne Berlin, who plays the title role, is the daughter of popular comedienne, writer and Mike Nicol's collaborator Elaine May.
Prior to going into general release, this film was booked for an exclusive engagement at the Fox Village theatre in Westwood, near the campus of UCLA. Throughout it's brief run there, it played to empty houses and more customer complaints and refund requests than usual.
Although the Gail Parent novel on which this was based was a well-received bestseller, this film adaptation was an unmitigated disaster and one of the bigger box office bombs of the 1970s.