With this film, Frank Lloyd became one of only two directors to win the best director Oscar without their movie also being nominated for best picture. The only other film to win a directing Oscar without a best picture nomination was Schlachtenbummler (1927), which won the only Oscar ever given for Comedy Direction to Lewis Milestone. Both Lloyd and Milestone won additional best director Oscars for directing best picture winners, Lloyd for Kavalkade (1933) and Milestone for Im Westen nichts Neues (1930).
This was the very first sound film ever exhibited in Argentina. Max Glücksmann presented this film, which was distributed by Warner Bros., with its original Vitaphone soundtrack in the Grand Splendid Movie Theater that also have Movietone equipment.
This film was a joint preservation project of the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the Museum of Modern Art Department of Film in cooperation with the Czechoslovak Film Archive. It was restored in conjunction with the project American Moviemakers: The Dawn of Sound.
The story is based on the lives of Lord Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) and Lady Emma Hamilton (1765-1815). Their love affair, while both were married to others, shocked English society at the time. After Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar, Lady Hamilton faded into obscurity and died in poverty. The fact that the couple had a daughter named Horatia is not mentioned in the film. The couple's love story also inspired many other films, including Lady Hamilton - Zwischen Schmach und Liebe (1968), Die Nelson-Affäre (1973), Lord Nelsons letzte Liebe (1941), and Lady Hamilton (1921).
Filmed silently but with all sound recorded separately and added in post-production-- the music, singing and sound effects, but no spoken dialog. Filmed in 1928, most studios and theaters were still in transition to the new sound-on-film technology.