The opening scenes depict the General Slocum disaster on the morning of June 15, 1904. The popular excursion steamer caught fire in New York's East River while transporting passengers to a picnic organized by St. Mark's Evangelical German Lutheran Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. With an estimated 1,021 fatalities, mostly women and children, this was New York City's single worst tragedy, in terms of lives lost, before 9/11. An incompetent, inexperienced crew was held primarily to blame for the tragedy.
This was the movie that bank robber John Dillinger had just seen before he was gunned down in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934. He had been set up by Anna Sage, the madam of a brothel, who knew Dillinger's girlfriend, Polly Hamilton. Sage was facing deportation and thought the tip might get her off. She told FBI agent Melvin Purvis that she would be wearing orange which appeared red, leading her to be dubbed "The Woman in Red". Dillinger was shot three times when he tried to escape, and Sage wound up being sent back to Romania.
This is the first of 14 pairings of Myrna Loy and William Powell, and the first of three movies they would make together in 1934.
Two of the child actors in this film, Donald Haines (Spud) and Jimmy Butler (Jim), died at the age of 23, casualties of WW2.
When Myrna Loy learned that John Dillinger was killed after seeing this film, her reaction (according to reports) was, "Oh, that poor man."