It took producer Ray Aghayan ten years to get the film made: he first acquired the rights to the Laura Z. Hobson novel in 1975, and first intended on adapting it to a feature film, later on as a television film, but with no results.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Aghayan drew comparisons with another LGBT-related made-for-tv movie, That Certain Summer (1972): "At the end of That Certain Summer, the father cries and apologizes to the son.