The only shared credit of
Burt Lancaster and
Hume Cronyn other than their having co-starred 40 years earlier as bitter enemies in the classic prison film noir
Brute Force (1947). Lancaster's frequent co-star whom they were there to honor on the evening of this special,
Kirk Douglas, had also worked with Cronyn in three films--
Spartacus (1960),
The Arrangement (1969) and
There Was a Crooked Man... (1970).