Second of two cinema movie collaborations of actor George C. Scott and director Franklin J. Schaffner. The first had been Patton (1970) around seven years earlier in 1970. That movie won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and scoring Oscars for both Scott and Schaffner. Ironically, Patton (1970) debuted in the same 1970 year that the Ernest Hemingway novel "Islands in the Stream" was first published.