Did You Know?
John Cassavetes, could not find any distributor for this film after completion, and was at one point literally carrying the reels of the film under his arm from one theater to another in hopes of getting one to play his movie. Finally, 'Martin Scorcese' , who had recently become a critically acclaimed director thanks to his film Mean Streets and happened to be a huge fan of Cassavetes' work threatened to pull his film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore from a major New York film festival unless they accepted this film.
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Cassavetes initially wrote the film as a play but Gena Rowlands talked him out of it, stating that the role would be far too harrowing and exhausting to play night after night.
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Richard Dreyfuss claimed that he found the film so harrowing when he first saw it that it caused him to vomit.
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To help fund the film, John Cassavetes remortgaged his home. Peter Falk also chipped in with some of his earnings from Columbo.
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