This television movie was originally broadcast as an episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (1963), one of the three episodes that Robert Altman directed.
Also known as "Once Upon a Savage Night" Kraft Suspense Theatre season 1 episode 21.
In the bus station, Philip Abbott is shown reading the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. The headline reads, "Bomb Rocks Sahara Inn; 2d Since Autry Bought It". The newspaper would have been dated January 17, 1964 and referred to the explosion of a bomb planted outside a formerly Mob-run hotel and nightclub in Chicago, IL that had been recently purchased by cowboy star Gene Autry.
Per the road map seen in the film, the fictitious town of "Pinhook, Indiana" in the film's opening would have been located southeast of Hammond, midway between the real-life towns of Griffith, to the north, and New Elliott, to the south.