Ronald Reagan's voice can be heard as a radio announcer, a job that Reagan held before he started as a film actor.
Carl Laemmle Jr., Paramount and MGM bid for the rights to the play. Laemmle bought them for over $50,000. He then turned them around and sold them to Warners in return for the loan of Paul Muni for "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", a film that never got made.
Producer Robert Lord favored Ronald Colman in the title role but was overruled by studio boss Jack L. Warner, who cast studio contractee Edward G. Robinson. After director Anatole Litvak was assigned to the project, Lord's role shifted from producer to associate producer.