This was filmed at Alabama's then recently closed Kilby Prison off of Coliseum Blvd. in Montgomery. As part of an agreement with the state for filming rights, filmmakers were supposed to have demolished the prison's massive walls with pyrotechnics during/after the film. However, the walls were so thick, three charges failed to do the job, and their remnants stayed around for years afterwards.
Although it was a box-office failure in 1970 and has been little-seen since, this movie was much admired by John Huston, who cast Stacy Keach in two of his own films after seeing it.
Alabama state officials announced that the money paid by MGM for the leasing of Kilby Prison would be used to help in the rehabilitation of ex-convicts.
Garrie Bateson was a cinema student at the University of Southern California when he started writing "a black comedy on capital punishment" in 1968. He submitted his original screenplay to his instructor, the noted screenwriting teacher Howard A. Rodman, who showed it around to friends in the industry. Director Jack Smight liked the script and MGM agreed to finance it ($1.8 million). Bateson was about 22 years old when the film premiered in October 1970. Other than a couple of network TV episodes, he has no other credits on IMDB.