Although not often discussed among the most daring pre-Code titles, this film features one of the most ribald sequences of the genre - the scene in which the Duke of Charmerace (John Barrymore) finds Sonia (Karen Morley) stark naked in his bed as a well-attended house party swirls on the floor below. After a charming, lewd exchange, the scene ends with the Duke dowsing the lights and helping Sonia put her gown on, with only their voices heard on a pitch-black screen.
The selling point at the time of the film's release was the first joint screen appearance of brothers John and Lionel Barrymore. Their chemistry was so strong that they would be co-assigned four more times by MGM in the next two years, in Grand Hotel (1932), Rasputin and the Empress (1932), Night Flight (1933), and Dinner at Eight (1933), the last of which gave them no scenes together. Rasputin and the Empress (1932) marked the only time that all three Barrymore siblings - Lionel, Ethel and John - appeared in the same film.
In a interview given in 1993, Karen Morley said that it was her favorite role and enjoyed working the Barrymores (Lionel and Jack).
Mischa Auer appears uncredited as the museum tour guide during the sequence in which Lupin lifts the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. One of several unbilled appearances Auer made before he rose to prominence in My Man Godfrey (1936), after which he emerged as one of the most employed supporting actors in Hollywood's golden era.