Warren William's most immediately prior film was titled Three on a Match. That film's title refers to the "superstition" that if three people light their cigarettes with the same match, the third person will soon die. The so-called superstition was actually part of a promotional campaign designed by Ivar Kreuger (the real-life counterpart to William's character) to increase the use of matches by cutting down sharing.
One of the earliest films to have a pre-credits sequence - seven years earlier than Of Mice and Men, which is often cited as the first such.
The character of Marta Molnar is based on Greta Garbo. Warner Bros. tried unsuccessfully to borrow Garbo from MGM for the role.
The film is loosely based on the Swedish industrialist Ivar Kreuger, who killed himself 9 months before this movie was released.