In 1934, this film was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency.
The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation (or more) copies of the film.
There is no time frame given, but Doc Silsby has a telephone and a car, which would make the film approximately contemporary.
Copyright MCMXXXIII is under the main title. That is 1933 in Roman Numerals.
The earliest documented telecasts of this film occurred in Washington DC Monday 7 February 1949 on WMAL (Channel 7), in Syracuse Sunday 17 April 1949 on WHEN (Channel 8), in Detroit Tuesday 3 May 1949 on WXYZ (Channel 2), in Fort Worth Monday 23 May 1949 on WBAP (Channel 5), in Salt Lake City Saturday 9 July 1949 on KSL (Channel 5), in Los Angeles Wednesday 28 September 1949 on KTSL (Channel 2) and Sunday 11 December 1949 on KECA (Channel 7), in Albuquerque Tuesday 8 November 1949 on KOB (Channel 4), and in New York City Saturday 23 September 1950 on WATV (Channel 13); a recent previous otherwise undocumented telecast in New York City on WOR (Channel 9) may likely have taken place earlier as part of their Monday evening film series.