Fritz Lang originally wanted a black woman to play the role of Emily Gaunt, but the producers refused.
Kathleen Freeman, in her ninth movie appearance, earned her first acting credit with this film. She would remain active, making nearly 300 appearances in film and television for the next 51 years, until her death in 2001.
One of the lesser-known and least-revived films of Fritz Lang's later American films. He made it on a small budget for a minor studio, Republic, with low-level stars in the leading roles. However, some two years earlier, it had been proposed as a lavish production for a Hollywood major, Twentieth Century Fox, with Otto Preminger directing Cary Grant and Rex Harrison as the two brothers.
This is a loose adaptation of an uncharacteristic novel by the English humorist A.P. (later Sir Alan) Herbert, first published in 1921. The film moves the setting from London (the river of the title is the Thames in the novel) to a rural American setting. and from the early 1920s to the late 19th century.