This film went out of circulation for many years, in large part due to the dissolution of the two production companies involved: NLT Productions was liquidated soon after its failed release, and Group W's assets were absorbed by CBS in 1999. As a result, the original film and sound elements went missing, sparking an international search. After nearly three years search, in 2002, the film's editor Anthony Buckley tracked the film down to CBS' Iron Mountain archives in Pittsburgh, where an initial 60 cans of film were found in a shipping container marked "For Destruction". By September 2004, a further 263 cans - several of which contained the original camera negative - were recovered from the vaults, allowing for a full digital restoration.
According to the DVD commentary, the "artificial" banknotes printed for shooting the "Two-Up" gambling sequence looked so realistic that two extras were later arrested for trying to pass them off as genuine currency.
Director Ted Kotcheff recalled that Chips Rafferty, whose last film appearance this is, insisted on drinking real pints of beer during the bar sequences. Kotcheff substituted non-alcoholic beers for the real stuff, but Rafferty could tell immediately that it had no alcoholic content and demanded proper pints be served. He told Kotcheff: "You concentrate on the directing, I'll concentrate on the drinking." The director calculated that due to this, Rafferty was drinking up to 30 pints per day.
Charlie's line "Got snakes in yor pocket, have you?" (when John Grant doesn't immediately pay for his drink) and Tim Hynes' quip "I was just checking your oil" (when he bumps into a bar patron with his pool cue) were both improvised by John Meillon and Al Thomas respectively.
The novel's author, Kenneth Cook, based the fictional town of Bundanyabba on Broken Hill in New South Wales, where much of the movie was filmed on location. The train is seen arriving at "Bundanyabba Sulphide St" station, and Sulphide Street is a genuine station in Broken Hill. Broken Hill is one of the most isolated inland towns in Australia.