The character of Michael Lasker was based on Meyer Lansky. The name was changed because Lansky was still living at the time.
This movie is a severely abridged two-hour version of the television miniseries The Gangster Chronicles (1981) which ran for thirteen one hour episodes.
The film was mainly distributed by being a direct-to-video release.
Though the miniseries The Gangster Chronicles (1981) spanned almost four decades, this shortened version covers the period from 1907 to the Prohibition-era of the 1920s.