This was the first American film directed in Hollywood by German-born William Dieterle, who would later gain a reputation for directing solid, worthy biopics of such notables as Emile Zola and Louis Pasteur. His career would reach its zenith in the late thirties and early forties with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and All That Money Can Buy, after which he teamed up with David Selznick for the strange and wonderful Portrait of Jennie. His career tapered off in the early fifties before coming to a dead end courtesy of the House Un-American Activites Committee.
