Uncredited final theatrical feature film of John Drew Barrymore. After finishing this film he left the industry and became a recluse for the next 25 years.
The name of the movie that Marion Hedgepeth (Jan-Michael Vincent) and Rose Hudkins (Glynnis O'Connor) go to see at the local cinema was Dark Victory (1939). A movie review in the 'New York' publication published on May 10, 1976 noted that though this movie was set in the year 1943, the motion picture showing at the theater was from 1939, about four years earlier.
Reportedly, star Jan-Michael Vincent, who played Marion Hedgepeth, performed his own water stunts at the McCloud River in northern California, USA.
While being processed into the Marines, screenwriter Stanford Whitmore saw a bus full of Marines dressed in baby blue uniforms who had failed their basic training. He told the publication 'Liberty' in the summer 1976 issue that the young men's sadness at being emasculated by the Marines had haunted him for many years since.
Screenwriter Stanford Whitmore derived the film's story from his own personal experience as a seventeen-year-old Marine enlisted in San Diego in California, USA according to an article published in the summer 1976 edition of the publication 'Liberty'.