Bette Davis said in an 1987 interview with Barbara Walters that "I'd like to kiss you but I just washed my hair" was her all-time favorite movie line. In 1977, she had used it in her acceptance speech when she won the American Film Institute (AFI) Lifetime Achievement Award, except she used the word "love," instead of "like": "I'd love to kiss you, but I just washed my hair."
Bette Davis later confessed she was a virgin when she made the film. "Yes, that's absolutely true. No question about it," she added for emphasis. "But my part called for me to exude raging sexuality. Well, if they had known I was still a virgin, they wouldn't have believed I could carry it off. They wouldn't have trusted me if they'd known, but no one asked. It was assumed that a young actress had lived a bit of a loose life."
Producer Darryl F. Zanuck forced director Michael Curtiz to use Bette Davis in this film against his wishes. Curtiz reportedly said "Who would want to go to bed with her?"
In an article in the March 8, 1934 of Daily Variety, this was one of three American films allowed to be shown in the Soviet Union at the time because the government approved of its social content.
The song Bette Davis sings throughout is "Willie the Weeper," about a drug-addicted chimney sweep. The song was originally based off of William Blake's poem, "The Chimney Sweeper." The song was a jazz standard in the early 1900s, with countless variations but they all tended to focus on hope and misery in the face of abject poverty. If the tune sounds familiar, it is. Cab Calloway changed it from a male chimney sweep to a female streetwalker for his 1931 smash hit, "Minnie the Moocher."