The setting is suggested as New York City in the very beginning by a few notes of the song "The Sidewalks of New York". In the double exposure of newspaper headlines/marble games (pinball) being destroyed by sledgehammers, the destruction depicts true events. Pinball machines were declared illegal and destroyed in New York City at that time. They remained illegal there until 1976.
In the film, Pat O'Brien's character, Breezy, gives a bum $5 to get some groceries. In 2019, that would be equivalent in buying power, due to inflation, to $92. Bobby Jordan's character, Mickey, works at the paper as a photographer and makes $14 a week. That's equivalent in 2019 to $257 a week or $13K a year.
Mickey confesses to Breezy that he put a horsehair in his cigarette. An obscure urban legend used to exist that if a person smoked a horsehair he would die.
The last of 4 films that co-starred Pat O'Brien and Joan Blondell; the others were I've Got Your Number (1934), En liberté provisoire (1937), and The Kid from Kokomo (1939). They later would both appear in The Phynx (1970).
Maris Wrixon's debut.