John Cassavetes could not find a distributor for the film after completion, and was at one point literally carrying the reels under his arm, from one theater to another, in hopes of getting one to play his movie. Finally, Martin Scorsese, who had recently become critically acclaimed following his film Mean Streets (1973) happened to be a huge fan of Cassavetes' work and threatened to pull his film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) from a major New York film festival unless they accepted this film.
Cassavetes initially wrote the film as a play, but wife Gena Rowlands talked him out of it, stating the role would be far too harrowing and exhausting to play night after night.
To help fund the film, John Cassavetes remortgaged his home and Peter Falk chipped in with some of his earnings from Columbo (1971). When no one wanted to buy "Influence", Cassavetes spent $750,000, most of it his own money, to release it, with the guidance of young distributor Jeff Lipsky. He helped to "four-wall" or rent out movie theaters to show the film and it ended up playing around the world, eventually grossing $12 million.
This film was selected into the National Film Registry in 1990 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"
The two women Mabel asks the time on the street, while waiting for the school bus, were Gena Rowland's real-life friends from school.