Shot in Malibu, California from April to July 1978, it marked the end of Travolta's three-film contract with producer Robert Stigwood following Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Grease (1978).

Trisha Rawlings is a wealthy middle-aged Beverly Hills socialite suffering from loneliness following a separation from her philandering husband Stu.

At a pharmacy, she meets Vick "Strip" Harrison, a suave young drifter whom she had briefly met in the recent past when he worked as a car valet.

Universal Pictures purchased the film rights from producer Robert Stigwood for $8 million, believing the star power of both leads would draw audiences.

[2] However, during production Universal raised concerns about Wagner and hired Saturday Night Fever director of photography Ralf D. Bode to assist with direction, although he is credited in the film as a technical advisor.

[2] During production, a Los Angeles magazine reported, "The chemistry between Tomlin and Travolta began to rival that between Menachem Begin and Yassar Arafat."

That the two stars look enough alike to be brother and sister is no help, and though Miss Wagner's camera comes in for some tactful close-ups of flesh in the love scenes, they are singularly unerotic.

What seemed like inspired casting on paper, the teaming of John Travolta and Lily Tomlin, fails badly in execution.

"[11] Gene Siskel awarded the film 1.5 stars out of 4 and called it "a thoroughly awkward, frequently laughable love story that Travolta would do well not to defend, but to simply forget and move on to his next project.

"[14] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times was more positive in his review: "There have been many complaints that there is a lack of chemistry between the stars and that their dialogue is banal in the utmost ...

Yet for those of us who respond to the intense concern Wagner projects for Tomlin and Travolta, there actually is chemistry between them and what they have to say to each other sounds lifelike rather than merely trite.

"[15] The New Yorker did not review the film at the time of release, but in 2019, New Yorker critic Richard Brody wrote a positive defense of the film, labeling it as one with "a tonal ambiguity to the bumptious romantic pursuit that follows, a surprisingly tremulous and fragile air, which may be what dismayed critics who were expecting a more conventional drama.