The first of four Laurel & Hardy features co-written by Harry Langdon, a comic superstar of the silent era who had fallen on hard times. The premise of the film - with Stan as a WWI veteran in France unaware that the war is over, and his readjustment to society - was adapted from Langdon's 1926 film Soldier Man (1926). Stan Laurel admired Langdon and used him as a gag writer for Les conscrits (1939), Les As d'Oxford (1940), and Laurel et Hardy en croisière (1940).
At the beginning of the film, there's a sign pointing to the trench called "COOTIE AVE". "Cootie" was a slang term for lice--a scourge of soldiers in the trenches during the war.
Tommy Bond was the boy on the staircase with the ball; he said that Stan developed the scene on the spot.
Final film of director John G. Blystone, who died of a heart attack on August 6, 1938, at the age of 45. He had just finished supervising the final cut of this film, which was released two weeks after his death.