While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using the sound-on-film movietone process.

[2] Street Angel was one of three movies for which Janet Gaynor received the first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1929; the others were F. W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Borzage's 7th Heaven.

[6] A spirited young woman (Gaynor) tries to prostitute herself and, failing in that, to steal money, to pay for her seriously ill mother's medicine.

Fleeing the pursuing police, she joins a traveling carnival, where she meets a vagabond painter (Farrell).

The film featured a theme song entitled "Angela Mia (My Angel)" which was composed by Erno Rapee and Lew Pollack.