Although Orville H. Hampton is credited as screenwriter along with Raphael Hayes, Hayes stated in an interview that he had never worked with Hampton on the script and in fact had never even met him. Hampton was assigned to write the script by producer/director Larry Peerce, and according to Hayes, Peerce thought Hampton's script was so awful that he ditched it and hired Hayes to rewrite it. However, after arbitration, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) ruled that Hampton's name should be in the credits as co-screenwriter.