Glass Houses cinematography was by cinematographer George J. Folsey, whose credits include films such as Meet Me In St. Louis (1944) and Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954).

The film's plot centres around the libidinous sexual shenanigans of a middle-class Californian family and explores themes such as marital discord, middle age, adultery, search for one's self, and incestuous desire.

Victor (Bernard Barrow) is a bored, married businessman carrying on an illicit affair with his attractive girlfriend Jean (Jennifer O'Neill).

At one of her civic meetings, Adele bonds with her neighbor, pipe-smoking sex novelist Les Turner (Clarke Gordon), and she has an affair with him, albeit with ambivalence.

Vincent Canby from The New York Times was a more generous, writing that "it is a fairly intelligent, perceptive look at a group of rather shabby people whose emotions are no deeper, nor more complex, than the movie that records them."