This mini-series, and the original novel, are a fictionalized version of the real-life lawsuit filed against author Leon Uris by Dr. Wladislaw Dering over a one-line reference in Uris' best-selling novel, "Exodus," about Dering's wartime record in a Nazi concentration camp. As in this mini-series, the concentration camp surgical records were produced, but on loan from the Polish government, not after being kept in hiding. Dering, like Adam Kelno (Sir Anthony Hopkins), collected only one half-penny in damages, and was forced to pay his own substantial legal costs.
This was the last television movie produced by Screen Gems.
The first ABC "novel for television" that launched the mini-series form on network television.
The original script began with Adam Kelno (Sir Anthony Hopkins) doing volunteer work in the jungle. After two days of shooting in the jungle, the jungle setting was scrapped and changed to a desert. The same thing happened during the shooting of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977).
Despite a 1975 Emmy Award for Film Sound Editing, none of the 13 sound editors received on-screen credit.