The 18 Dec 1968 Var announced that Columbia Pictures had bought the film rights to Robert Anderson’s play, I Never Sang for My Father. Gilbert Cates, who produced the Broadway play, would both produce and direct the movie. Principal photography was set to begin in May 1969 in New York City.
The working title was Strangers, according to the 21 May 1969 Var. Stage actress Dorothy Stickney, playing “Margaret Garrison,” was making her first film appearance since MGM’s A Catered Affair in 1956 (see entry).
 Cates told the 7 Dec 1970 LAT he purposely did not bring any of the principal actors—Alan Webb, Hal Holbrook, Lillian Gish, and Teresa Wright—with him from the stage to the film. “When an actor plays on Broadway he gives a performance that’s outsize, which is something I believe he’s not fully able to conquer when he does it on film,” he said. “I wanted to start from scratch. I didn’t want any, ‘We did it this way on the stage’ or ‘Why did you take out that line?’ from the cast.” Cates had originally approached Melvyn Douglas for the stage play, but the actor hated the character of “Tom Garrison” so much that he could not play him every night, but could tolerate him once in the film version. Dorothy Stickney had also turned down the role in the play.
In its review, the 19 Oct 1970 DV pointed out that the play ran for only 124 performances on Broadway in 1968 and lost most of its investment, which meant “the public was trying to tell [the producers] something.” The critic deemed that “opening up the play for the screen results in just another intimate N.Y.-filmed stage-rutted melodrama.”
Melvyn Douglas and Gene Hackman were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. Robert Woodruff Anderson was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.