This movie was MGM's first all-talking picture, and the first sound film to win the Best Picture Oscar.
A silent version was also released, as many cinemas hadn't yet acquired sound equipment in 1929.
1929's top-grossing film.
Eddie Kane starred as a big shot Broadway producer named Francis Zanfield, which is an obvious take on Broadway legend Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.. Meanwhile, the character name Jock Warriner (played by Kenneth Thomson) was meant to sound like Jack L. Warner, who was the head of Warner Bros. Studio, the main rival of MGM studio at that time.
The number "Wedding of the Painted Doll," 307 feet in length, was filmed in two-color Technicolor, but except for a 16-second Technicolor fragment with the beginning of the number, preserved at George Eastman House, it survives only in black and white. The original choreography was rejected, and the number had to be re-filmed. Rather than have a live orchestra perform the music, the new choreography was filmed during a playback of the original take, making this the first film sequence filmed during a playback of pre-recorded music.