First American film of Herbert Marshall, who plays Leslie Crosbie's murdered lover, Geoffrey Hammond. In the 1940 remake starring Bette Davis, he plays her husband, Robert Crosbie. Also, Herbert Marshall played author W. Somerset Maugham in The Razor's Edge (1946),
and Geoffrey Wolfe in Maugham's The Moon and Sixpence (1942). Additionally, Marshall's daughter, Sarah Marshall, plays Mrs. Joyce in the 1982 made-for-television version of The Letter (1982).
The film's star, Jeanne Eagels, died of a drug overdose shortly after this film was released (Ironically, in this film, there is a lengthy scene of her character visiting an Opium Den). It was one of only two sound films she made. Following her death, Eagels received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, the first posthumous Academy Award nomination for an actor.
The original Broadway production of "The Letter" by W. Somerset Maugham opened at the Morosco Theater on September 26, 1927 and ran for 104 performances.
The poem that Geoff Hammond is reading aloud to Li Ti at the opening of his first scene is Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol.