The opening scenes depict the General Slocum disaster on the morning of June 15, 1904. The popular excursion steamer caught fire in New York's East River while transporting passengers to a picnic organized by St. Mark's Evangelical German Lutheran Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. With an estimated 1,021 fatalities, mostly women and children, this was New York City's single worst tragedy, in terms of lives lost, before 9/11. An incompetent, inexperienced crew was held primarily to blame for the tragedy.
This was the movie that bank robber John Dillinger had just seen before he was gunned down in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934. He had been set up by Anna Sage, the madam of a brothel, who knew Dillinger's girlfriend, Polly Hamilton. Sage was facing deportation and thought the tip might get her off. She told FBI agent Melvin Purvis that she would be wearing orange which appeared red, leading her to be dubbed "The Woman in Red". Dillinger was shot three times when he tried to escape, and Sage wound up being sent back to Romania.
This is the first of 14 pairings of Myrna Loy and William Powell, and the first of three movies they would make together in 1934.
In her autobiography "Being and Becoming", Myrna Loy ruminated on the infamous connection between John Dillinger and this film: "They put me right to work in Manhattan Melodrama, which precipitated the demise of John Dillinger, Public Enemy No. 1. FBI agents shot him down outside the Biograph Theatre, in Chicago, after he'd seen the film. Supposedly a Myrna Loy fan, he broke cover to see me. Personally, I suspect the theme of the picture rather than my fatal charms attracted him, but I've always felt a little guilty about it, anyway. They filled him full of holes, poor soul."
George Cukor was assigned as director for additional scenes after the preview showing on 14 April 1934, because director W.S. Van Dyke had already started on his next movie, L'uomo ombra (1934).