Elizabeth Montgomery and Lizzie Andrew Borden were sixth cousins once removed, both descending from 17th-century Massachusetts resident John Luther. Rhonda McClure, the genealogist who documented the Montgomery-Borden connection, said, "I wonder how Elizabeth would have felt if she knew she was playing her own cousin."
In 1976, Elizabeth Montgomery told reporter Joan E. Vadeboncoeur about a letter she received after the film aired which left her perplexed. "One guy wrote a critique that went on for three pages. It was very articulate. I put it down and looked at the envelope and it was from a state institution. I'm wondering what he was in for. He didn't tell me."
Elizabeth Montgomery asked her doctor about the effects of morphine, and was told that it would make one's pupils smaller. She received a prescription for eyedrops to mimic the effect. The drops severely impaired her vision, and she found herself tripping over cables and bumping into things on the set. Coincidentally, Montgomery's next movie was Dark Victory (1976), a remake of a 1939 Bette Davis classic, in which she portrayed a woman who suddenly went blind.
The movie originally aired on ABC as a Monday Night Movie of the Week.
This was Gloria Stuart's first acting role since She Wrote the Book (1946) 29 years earlier. She plays an unnamed character who sees Lizzy shoplifting a hatchet. She's only seen in wide shots and has two lines of dialogue.