When Maureen O'Sullivan first met Clark Gable on the set, he was in his old-age makeup. He asked her out on a horseback-riding date, but thinking he was too old for her, she turned him down. Later when she was doing some voice-overs, she saw him without makeup and regretted her decision. Gable never asked her out again.
When M-G-M Executive Producer Irving Thalberg bought the rights to the play, "Strange Interlude," he originally planned to have the leads played by Lynn Fontanne, who played the lead on Broadway, and her famous husband Alfred Lunt. But, the couple turned it down because they weren't interested in making movies. Thalberg then decided to use his wife Norma Shearer and Clark Gable instead. Gable was at first intimidated, but agreed.
After the opening credits, a written prologue states: "In order for us fully to understand his characters, Eugene O'Neill allows them to express their thoughts aloud. As in life, these thoughts are quite different from the words that pass their lips."
The story begins in 1920, and, based on the aging of the leading characters, ends somewhere around 1950, although no attempt at any "futuristic" artifacts is evident, and costumes and hairstyles never wander far from 1932.