A contemporary article in the Los Angeles Examiner stated Joan Fontaine was originally cast in the female lead, but she was replaced by Margaret Sullavan before shooting began.
In real life, both Margaret Sullavan and Charles Boyer died of overdoses. Her death was ruled accidental, while his was ruled as a suicide.
Two of Barney Oldfield's racing cars was in the Vanderbilt Cup sequence: a 1909 six-cylinder Stearns, and a 1912 four-cylinder, sixteen-valve Prince Henry Benz.
In Ray's apartment in New York City, Ed Porter finds the second of two volumes of "A Treatise on the Law of Banks and Banking" by John Torrey Morse (1840-1937), an American biographer and historian. As of 2020, because of its impact and historical significance, that book is still in print.