The film was based on the actual murder of New York showgirl Dot (Dorothy) King, known as "The Broadway Butterfly." She was found dead in her West 57th Street apartment on March 15, 1923. The room had been ransacked and much of her expensive jewelry, as well as an ermine coat, was missing. Her death was attributed to suffocation by chloroform. King was linked to some prominent men, including Philadelphia industrialist and socialite J. Kearsley Mitchell, who apparently had taken her as his mistress in 1922 and who became a prime suspect. But no one was ever tried for King's murder, and apparently the case remains open and unsolved.
Louise Brooks refusal to dub the movie angered her parent studio, Paramount, and effectively sabotaged her acting career. According to the documentary Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu (1998), Paramount spread the word that Brooks' voice was not suitable for sound film, and although later sound productions made by Brooks proved this to be more or less true, her lack of professional vocal training was also an obvious factor.
Paramount bought the rights to the first 3 S.S. Van Dine mysteries (The Benson Murder Case, The Canary Murder Case and The Greene Murder Case) as a package deal in 1928, filming the second effort first. MGM would outbid the studio for the 4th Philo Vance best-seller, The Bishop Murder Case (1929).
Completed in 1928, Paramount sensed that releasing the S.S. Van Dine (Willard Huntington Wright) Philo Vance whodunit as a silent would be financial disaster. Studio honchos called in Frank Tuttle to rework it as an all-talkie. Margaret Livingston supplied the voice of the uncooperative Louise Brooks (as the Canary), who had left Hollywood for a career in Europe. Livingstone, who also had short, bobbed hair, stood in for her in some of the retakes. The film was a big hit despite the high negative cost.