Sue Mengers, the Hollywood agent of Barbra Streisand and Gene Hackman at the time this picture was developed and made, was married to this film's director, Jean-Claude Tramont.
This picture's director Jean-Claude Tramont once spoke of the fact that his wife Sue Mengers was Barbra Streisand's agent at the time. He commented on the media circus' response that ensued which suggested that Mengers heavily persuaded Streisand to do the picture as a personal favor to her: "My wife and I have been together eleven years. If she had the ability to force Barbra to do a picture with me, I wish she had used it sooner. In most of her pictures, she [Streisand]'s criticized for overpowering the screen. In All Night Long (1981), she's criticized for not overpowering the screen." Tramont stated that Streisand took the part because she wanted to play a different type of character to what she had done before.