Eureka

The character of Mayakofsky (Joe Pesci) is a thinly disguised name for real-life mob boss Meyer Lansky. According to Wikipedia, source novelist Marshall Houts "proposed the theory that American gangster boss Meyer Lansky was behind the killing of (Harry) Oakes (the real-life person on whom Gene Hackman's Jack McCann was based), due to Oakes' resistance to casino gambling in the Bahamas."

Jack McCann's discovery of the gold is several times said to take place in the winter of 1925. At this time, McCann has no family and is a complete loner. Yet, when the film moves forward to 1945, he has a married daughter who is said to be twenty years old in the early part of 1945. Her mother, McCann's wife, is an aristocratic Englishwoman who has married him for his money, and who therefore cannot have married him before 1926 at the earliest, which makes the daughter unlikely to be more than 18 in the 1945 scenes. Theresa Russell, who plays the daughter, was in her late twenties when the film opened.

Although the UK cinema version was intact the 1986 Warner video release was missing 7 seconds from the death of Jack McCann, notably shots of a flame thrower being run over his body and face. These were not cut by the BBFC so presumably they were distributor edits. DVD releases are fully uncut.

Featured in Loose Talk: Episode #1.7 (1983)