John Cassavetes directs his wife Gena Rowlands, his mother Katherine Cassavetes, his brother-in-law David Rowlands, his mother-in-law Lady Rowlands and his children Xan Cassavetes and Zoe R. Cassavetes.
Universal Pictures green-lit the project during the early 1970s in an attempt to replicate the success of Easy Rider (1969).
Reportedly, after the movie had originally launched, the Universal Pictures studio cut a sequence at the start of the picture. This allegedly breached their contract with writer-director John Cassavetes. No video release on either DVD or video-cassette has ever featured the edited out scene.
This is one of 11 movies that John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands made together. The others are A Child Is Waiting (1963), Faces (1968), Machine Gun McCain (1969), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Two-Minute Warning (1976), Opening Night (1977), Shadows (1958), Gloria (1980), Tempest (1982), and Love Streams (1984).
Portions of Minnie and Moskowitz (1971) were shot on location in Los Angeles and New York. Pink's Hot Dogs, the first restaurant to which "Moskowitz" takes "Minnie," is a well-known family-owned establishment, which has been in existence in Los Angeles since 1939.