Eleventh and final time that James Cagney co-starred with his close friend Frank McHugh, the first time being The Crowd Roars (1932).
The film is based on a 1945 novel of the same title which was a fictionalized account of assassinated Louisiana politician Huey Long by Adria Locke Langley. A film based on a similar subject, राजा के सभी पुरुष (1949), won the Oscar for Best Picture. That b/w film shot on location with non-professional extras had a gritty realism that this studio-bound movie did not have, and the latter film suffered by comparison.
James Cagney and William Cagney paid $250,000 in 1945 ($4.2M in 2023) for the film rights to the novel upon which this film is based.