This made-for-television movie was made and first broadcast about two years after its source non-fiction true crime book of the same name by Gay Talese had been first published in 1971.
This 1973 tele-movie was made and broadcast right on the heals of 1972s The Godfather (1972). Honor Thy Father (1973) coincidentally shared a word, "father", from that picture's title, whilst the production cast an actor, Sam Coppola, who had the same last name as that movie's director Francis Ford Coppola. Moreover, actor Richard S. Castellano appeared in both movies.
The name of the philosophical book that one of the gangster's read was Jean-Paul Sartre's "Being and Nothingness".
Reportedly, apparently the film was not shown to television critics prior to its premiere broadcast so as to make sure comparisons and differences between the tele-movie and the its source book would not be revealed prior to its debut telecast.