Trivia / Love and Death

• California Doubling: France and Hungary double for Russia.
• Fake Russian: Needless to say, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are not Russian.
  • Because most of the film was shot in France, many of the other Russian characters are played by French actors.
• Fake Nationality: Corsica-born Frenchman Napoléon Bonaparte is played by James Tolkan, who is from Michigan.
• Completely Different Title: In West Germany, the film became Die letzte Nacht des Boris Gruschenko ("The Last Night of Boris Grushenko").
  • The Spanish, and Brazilian dubs of the film took the German title, so in Spanish it is known also as La última noche de Boris Gruschenko, and in Portuguese, as "A Última Noite de Boris Grushenko".
  • The European Portuguese translators chose to highlight the film's nature as a spoof, titling it after Tolstoi's War and Peace. As a result, in Portugal, it is titled "Nem Guerra, New Paz" ("Neither War nor Peace", from the portuguese "Guerra e Paz", which is the novel's translated title).
• Studio Hop: The film began development at Fox and was intended to be their one of their big Christmas 1974 releases. Eventually, it went into turnaround to United Artists due to their relationship with Woody Allen. Allen wouldn't make a film for Fox until Melinda and Melinda.
• Troubled Production: The film was shot in France and Hungary, and production was beset by bad weather, food poisoning, spoiled negatives, and physical injuries. Furthermore, the crews and extras were from different countries, and didn't all speak the same language, making it difficult for them to communicate with each other and Allen. With all of these problems, Allen swore he'd never film outside of the US ever again. (That ended with Match Point.)
• What Could Have Been: The soundtrack was originally scored with the music of Igor Stravinsky, but Woody Allen thought it made the scenes "unfunny". He discovered Sergei Prokofiev's lighthearted music worked far better.