A great amount of footage of Pookey the Parrot had to be removed because he imitated the "Cut!" command of director Wilhelm Thiele and often screamed it in the middle of a scene.
It was during a Saturday matinee showing of this film on September 14 1940 that the Kemp Town Odeon bombing occurred in Brighton. Pursued by Spitfires, a German Dornier dropped its load of twenty bombs to decrease weight. Two went through the cinema roof killing four children and two adults, and injuring many more. A further forty-six died in the surrounding streets, accounting for over a quarter of the deaths in the Brighton Blitz. The staff were given a day at Denham Studios to watch the filming of Major Barbara (1941) to thank them for their rescue efforts.
The $500,000 bequest to the town would equate to over $9.1M in 2019.
No information about the original play, "Der Mutige Seefahrer", has been found. The English language version, called "The Courageous Seaman" had no Broadway run.
One year after their roles in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Frank Morgan and Billie Burke are paired together as a harried husband and wife in this slapstick comedy.