The film is an homage and tribute to German Expressionist cinema, particularly the works of German filmmakers F.W. Murnau, Georg Wilhelm Pabst and Fritz Lang.
As this Woody Allen film was going to be more expensive than one of his usual movies with the large cost of the set constructions, studio Orion Pictures mandated that Allen would need to also appear in the film himself to assist the picture with being bankable.
Based on a one-act comedy play called "Death", published in Woody Allen's "Without Feathers" (1972), the play and movie are themselves a pastiche of Franz Kafka's work in general, and of his novel "The Trial" in particular. The film was made and released not long before the 1993 version of Kafka's The Trial (1993).
According to website Every Woody Allen Movie, "Woody Allen screened the film with Orion Pictures president Eric Pleskow. Allen said 'he looked like he'd been hit with a mallet after he saw it'. Pleskow was apparently alarmed at the film's aggressive box-office unfriendliness".
Filmed on a 26,000-square-foot set at Kaufman-Astoria studios, it holds the distinction of being the biggest set ever built in New York.