William Wyler gave Claire Trevor an old purse and broken high heel shoes. He had her minimize her make-up and ordered her not to comb her hair when she got up in the morning. He wanted her to look like the downtrodden character she was playing.
Director William Wyler was dissatisfied with the look of disgust Wendy Barrie gave in a scene where she was supposed to react to trash cans in dirty alley. After several unsatisfactory retakes, Wyler ordered the property man to obtain real cockroaches, which elicited the appropriate response from the actress.
An early gangster role for Humphrey Bogart that built on the success of his performance in The Petrified Forest (1936) the year before. Bogart's name appeared below Sylvia Sidney's in the opening credits. This was reversed for any subsequent re-releases.
In order to get past the censors, all references to Francey's "profession" were veiled (although it was mentioned in the original play on which the film was based), even the fact that she was suffering from the late stages of syphilis, which was never mentioned by name.
Humphrey Bogart subsequently played in two more movies featuring The Dead End Kids: Crime School (1938) and Angels with Dirty Faces (1938).
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