Mortwell's strip club is actually the famous Raymond RevueBar in London's Soho district. The giant prop hand Mortwell sits in was a famous element of the show, visible in a lot of promotional material for the club. At one point George walks past a poster for the Festival of Erotica, a real show at the RevueBar at the time.
Writer and director Neil Jordan cast real prostitutes in this movie, just like director Erich von Stroheim who cast real prostitutes if the script requested.
While George is waiting for Simone in the Brighton hotel bar, he watches a movie on TV. The movie is They Live by Night (1948), another film about a man and a woman who go on the run together.
Bob Hoskins was unaware that Sir Michael Caine was in this movie until he arrived on-set for the first day of shooting. Caine had created the ruse while they worked together on Sweet Liberty (1986). He told Hoskins that he had been offered the part, but it was too small, and he was tired of playing villains, even though he had already agreed to take the role.
This movie featured the Genesis song "In Too Deep", which is also featured on the band's best-selling album "Invisible Touch", released in 1986. The song was written primarily by Phil Collins after he was asked to write a song for this movie soundtrack but is credited to all three members of the band. It became a hit in the U.K. and the U.S. The song is heard almost in its entirety in the middle of the movie.