John Huston, who had long suffered from emphysema, personally asked Robert Mitchum to take his part in this film after he was hospitalized with pneumonia. Mitchum filmed the role during a break from War and Remembrance (1988).
The Judge in the courtroom scene was an actual Rhode Island Superior Court Judge, not a professional actor. Judge Needham oversaw the first attempted murder trial of Claus von Bulow which took place in Newport, RI in 1982.
One of two 1988 releases where a cast member from Top Gun (1986) plays a book reader to elder citizens. While in this movie Anthony Edwards plays a reader, his Top Gun co-star Kelly McGillis also plays a reader in The House on Carroll Street (1988).