King Vidor filmed many scenes in New York City streets using real crowds instead of extras, real buses and trains, and even real traffic cops. In one scene, a police officer is looking toward the camera, admonishing someone to "move along". In fact, he was actually addressing Vidor and his disguised film crew. Vidor cleverly incorporated it into the scene.
King Vidor shot nine different endings before settling on the one used in the finished film, because MGM did not like to release films without a positive ending.
Despite the widespread critical and mild box office success, MGM head Louis B. Mayer despised the picture partly because of the depressing theme but mainly because he thought it was obscene due to the bathroom scene that featured a toilet.
Included among the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die', edited by Steven Jay Schneider.
The first American film to show a toilet.
This film has been hailed by many to be the first film to show toilets. With so many silent films lost, that can only be an assumption not a fact.
While MGM liked the script they thought there was very little chance it would turn a profit. Despite the risk, studio production head Irving Thalberg let King Vidor film this as a pet project because Vidor had made many successful pictures for the studio - and even more importantly had made the studio a lot of money. As it turned out, the film grossed more than twice what it cost to make.