It was in this film that silent screen legend John Gilbert made his disastrous talking-picture debut. His voice was said to have sounded high-pitched and frankly odd in a film that called for him to play a romantic swashbuckler. Audiences reportedly laughed at him at the most inappropriate moments.
Legend has it that the reason John Gilbert's voice sounded high and reedy was that M.G.M. studio head L.B. Mayer bore a grudge against Gilbert and told technicians to speed up the soundtrack to discredit the increasingly drunken and troublesome star. Certainly Gilbert's voice is flawless in the later Queen Christina.
The filming of the movie and its disastrous reception were one of the main inspirations for the film Singin' in the Rain.
This film has been restored and preserved for historical purposes, and is presently owned and controlled by Paramount Pictures us who bought the rights from MGM when they remade it as A Breath of Scandal.
This was not John Gilbert's first talking picture. His first was "Redemption" but Gilbert was so dissatisfied with the way the film turned out that he asked to hold it back for a while, in hope that his next film would make a better talking debut. This is why the films came out in a reversed order. (source: 'Dark Star' by Leatrice Gilbert.)