Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's first feature-length film. Producer Hal Roach had wanted to use some of the sets left over from MGM's big-budget prison picture The Big House to do a prison-movie spoof, but discovered that it would be too expensive to make as a short subject.
Four foreign language versions were also shot: Sous les verrous (French), Hinter Schloss und Riegel (German), Muraglie (Italian) and Los presidiarios or "De Bote en Bote" (Spanish) . Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy spoke their lines phonetically, and many supporting roles were recast, including Boris Karloff playing "The Tiger" in the French version.
Several scenes were shot but deleted from the final theatrical print, which ran 56 minutes. The first ending showed the boys in gray-bearded old age reminiscing about their misadventures.
Stan and Ollie spent a lot of time in jail. In addition to this film, they were jailbirds in "The Second Hundred Years", "Hoosegow", and "Flying Deuces".