After Walter Huston's character makes an obviously mealy-mouthed political statement to a reporter, the latter sarcastically tells him "If this had been at Gettysburg, I'd have thought you were Lincoln." It is probably not a coincidence that Huston had played Abraham Lincoln in La révolte des esclaves (1930).
The first deposit in the bank book was made in mid-July, and the final deposit was in late August.
The $60,000 shown in the bank book equates to nearly $1.4M in 2024.
(at around 1h 7 mins) After visiting Mary in jail, Mike goes to the law office of "Thomas H. Haskins and James A. Burke Counsellors at Law". While there are two correct spellings, "counsellor" (with a double "l") is predominantly used in the British Empire, whereas "counselor" (with a single "l") is more prevalent in the U.S. Maybe Haskins and Burke have a British heritage.
According to contemporary articles in The Hollywood Reporter, Walter Huston replaced Lionel Barrymore as the judge, and W.S. Van Dyke replaced Bayard Veiller as director of this picture.