M-G-M made this film in hopes of turning Novarro (a major leading man of the silent era) and Evelyn Laye (an established British singing star) into a second pair of "opera-singing lovebirds" like their highly successful duo of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. When it failed to impress critics or the movie-going public, both Novarro and Laye "involuntarily retired" from their screen careers.
Because the action of the movie is so completely wedded to the music, the script was mimeographed on special music paper, with the action and dialogue printed between the staves and timed to each measure.
The following actors are listed in studio records as appearing in this film, but were not seen in the print: Josef Swickard as the doctor, Billy Gilbert and Cecilia Parker. 'Stuart Erwin (I)' was listed as an actor in a Hollywood Reporter production chart, but he was not seen in the film either.
Evelyn Laye's final cinematic credit for over thirty years, prior to Theatre of Death (1967), Laye in the interim making three television appearances, those being in Silver Wedding (1957), Tony Draws a Horse (1958) and The Amorous Prawn (1960).
The film borrows its plot from Romberg's earlier operetta "The Student Prince," and would later serve as inspiration for Terence Rattigan's 1953 stage play "The Sleeping Prince," starring Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, which was in turn filmed as The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) with Olivier reprising his role opposite Marilyn Monroe. "The Girl Who Came to Supper," a musical incarnation of Rattigan's play starring Jose Ferrer and Florence Henderson, premiered on Broadway in 1963.