Actress Isa Barzizza once said about her co-star Totò: "When I rewatched many movies with Totò, they were almost all rather poor, done hastily and without care, but I noticed how Totò was always exceptional, whether the movie was good or bad."
Based on the play Nu turco napulitano (1888) by Eduardo Scarpetta, father of the siblings Eduardo, Peppino and Titina De Filippo. Totò worked a lot together with the De Filippo siblings, in particular with Peppino he formed a very successful comedy duo.
The crew of this movie is the same of Il più comico spettacolo del mondo (1953).
At the beginning of the movie it's stated that the stage performance is set on February 24, 1904 in the San Carilo theatre in Naples. In real life the theatre was demolished in 1884, that's before the original play was written. The movie was in fact filmed in the Ponti-De Laurentiis film studios.
Although based on a play, the movie has got some differences from the original: the scene of the escape from jail is taken from Totò's revue show Se quell'evaso io fossi (1933), same for the scene of the untertaker mistaken for a dressmaker, already reused in Le sei mogli di Barbablù (1950). The idea of the eunuch had been used by Totò also in the revue Uomini a nolo (1937).