The plot to the film is loosely based on a 1949 murder case that resulted in the execution of a friend of writer Lemelin's.
The circumstances of the crime in the novel by Roger Lemelin were inspired by the airplane tragedy of Sault-au-Cochon on September 9th 1949. In it. the first airplane crash caused by a criminal act in the Western hemisphere, Albert Guay placed a bomb in the airplane cargo and the plane crashed on a mountain called Sault-au-Cochon north of Quebec city on the north shore. Albert Guay was later accused,condemned and hanged on January 12th 1951. Jack Gilbert Graham's similar crime in 1955 was inspired by this act.