The first all-color film nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.
This is widely considered to be the first Technicolor film that was a bona-fide critical and box office success. Until "A Star is Born" and "Nulla sul serio (1937)," color films had been garish, over-saturated and, as many critics complained, headache-inducing. Producer David O. Selznick insisted on muted, realistic color, and it was the success of these two films that paved the way for his Technicolor masterpiece "Via col vento (1939)."
The Oscar that Janet Gaynor receives in the film is her own Oscar, which she won for her role in Settimo cielo (1927).
Early in the film, when Esther stops at Grauman's Chinese Theater to see the stars' footprints, the second one she visits is Harold Lloyd, which is to the right of Janet Gaynor's own prints from 1929, a portion which is visible on screen, including the "r" in her signature.