Tom Atkins' film debut.
Frank Sinatra plays Detective Joe Leland from the novel (The Detective) by Roderick Thorp. Thorp wrote a sequel (Nothing Lasts Forever) where Leland is trapped in a Claxxon Oil Corporation skyscraper after it's taken by German terrorists and must rescue his daughter and grandchildren. Twenty years later the novel was filmed with some changes: the daughter became his wife, Claxxon became the Nakatomi Corporation and Joe Leland's name was changed to John McClane. The film was released under the title Die Hard. Because of a clause in Sinatra's contract for "The Detective" which gave him the right to reprise his role in a sequel, he was actually the first person offered the McClane role, even though he was 73 years old at the time. Also, coincidentally, Bruce Willis (who played McClane) made his movie debut in The First Deadly Sin walking out of a bar as Sinatra walks into it.
Frank Sinatra was supposed to costar with his wife, Mia Farrow in this film but a film Farrow was working on was running behind schedule, so she refused. Sinatra got so mad, he made the film without her (casting Jacqueline Bisset in the role instead) and served her divorce papers on the set of that film, Rosemary's Baby.
Mark Robson was originally set to direct, but Frank Sinatra preferred Gordon Douglas with whom he had made four previous films. Robson and Sinatra had clashed while making Von Ryan's Express.
Robert Evans had acquired the rights to "The Detective" and was supposed to produce the movie for Twentieth Century-Fox, which had signed him to a contract. (He had earlier worked for Fox as an actor.) When Charlie Bluhdorn, the owner of Paramount, offered Evans a job as the head of European production at Paramount, Evans had to surrender the project to get out of his Fox contract.
First film of Don Fellows.