Included among the American Film Institute's 2001 list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies.
The four engine bomber flown by Gable and Tracy near the end of the film was a Boeing Model 299B, Y1B-17 "Flying Fortress". It was one of the 13 Y1B-17s ("Y" indicating service test and "1" indicating procurement from F-1 funds) acquired by the U.S. Army Air Corps for evaluation. The massed flight at the end of the film consisted of all 13 Y1B-17s, which had USAAC serial numbers
36-149 to 36-161, and had been delivered by Boeing between 11 January and 4 August 1937. All were eventually redesignated B-17.
Myrna Loy and four crew members were in an automobile accident on their way to do location work in San Diego for this film. In mid-January, 1938, the car in which they were traveling accidentally went off the road after swerving to avoid a stalled truck. Also in the car was Loy's stand-in Shirley Hughes, hairdresser Eleanor Cole, wardrobe girl Margaret Wood, and the unnamed driver; nobody was injured.
After Jim flies away from Ann, he passes over the ballpark where they recently attended a baseball game. Although the movie takes place in Wichita, Kansas, the ballpark shown in the fly over is the old and now demolished Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, California.