It was adapted from the play by James Bernard Fagan, Donald Ogden Stewart, Ernest Vajda and Claudine West.

The film was directed by Sidney Franklin and stars Norma Shearer, Fredric March, Leslie Howard and Ralph Forbes.

The film is a remake of an earlier 1922 silent version, also directed by Franklin and starring Norma Talmadge.

His lifelong friend Dr. Owen brings Moonyean's orphaned niece Kathleen to see him, hoping that John will adopt her.

Caught in a violent thunderstorm with her hapless and lovelorn childhood friend Willie, Kathleen breaks into the long-deserted Wayne mansion.

However, their love proves too strong and for weeks they meet in secret at Mrs. Crouch’s tea shop, the windowpanes shaken by the guns in France.

Finally discarding his hatred and desire for revenge, John tells Kathleen the truth and asks her to bring Kenneth back with her.

They watch as Kathleen helps Kenneth walk to the house, and then the ghostly lovers drive off in a spectral carriage, feted by the spirits of their wedding guests.

[examples needed] The 1941 version, though not a shot-for-shot remake, does incorporate several key scenes from the 1932 film verbatim, while adding material that focuses more on World War II, including patriotic songs performed by Jeanette MacDonald.

The song is heard in the play and in all three film adaptions, including as musical accompaniment in the 1922 silent version.

[2] Stewart said he got the job as "having acquired a reputation as a humorist because of my books" the film "wasn’t exactly a laugh riot.

Irving Thalberg needed some help with the dialogue there; they had shot half of it, I think, and I rewrote some of the scenes.