Originally meant to be filmed in the United States. However, the National Rail Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) was fearful of adverse publicity, and refused to cooperate. As a result, the producers were forced to work with the Canadian Pacific Railway, using thinly disguised CPRail equipment and shooting exteriors along the CP Rail right-of-way.
When meeting Gene Wilder after having seen Silver Streak (1976), Cary Grant asked him if the script had been in any way inspired by North by Northwest (1959). As Wilder admitted it was correct, Grant then added, "I knew it! Have you noticed that each time you take ordinary people, say, like you and me, then take them in a situation way above their heads, it makes a great thriller?"
Gene Wilder loved his part because he could get to do scenes which were fitting of Errol Flynn doing action or Cary Grant being romantic.
Seven foot two inch tall Richard Kiel revealed in his autobiography "Making It Big in the Movies" that his part as Reace the henchman was initially not written as a giant. Kiel replaced Lionel Stander, who left the project.
Richard Pryor wrote the dialogue for the scene where Grover (Richard Pryor) puts the shoe polish on George's (Gene Wilder's) face to make him appear to be black. When it was first filmed, the scene was changed so that a white man walked in and believed George was black. Richard Pryor was uncomfortable with the scene, and felt it would be funnier if it was done as he wrote it, a black man walked in and is not fooled at all. Pryor asked Arthur Hiller for a re-shoot, but Hiller refused. Pryor walked off the set and refused to return to filming until the scene was changed. Hiller relented and Pryor's idea was used for the final cut.
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