"What I had in mind here was another piece of Americana. It's a story about a boy in an orphanage who gets tied up with a couple of show people, going to fairs. One of them was a Negro, which interested me, and the other guy was Dan Dailey. It's a kind of small-town political picture as well: it's about crooked politicians, who are diverting funds from the orphanage, and who are eventually uncovered by the show-business people and the boy.... Dan Dailey was good...cool, a little cynical, selling his medicines which at the same time caused and cured diarrhoea; he maintained a nice and merry pace...." Douglas Sirk in Jon Halliday's Sirk on Sirk.
"In Sirk's world, 'show-business' prevarication, characterized by wit and charm and harmless hot air, is an entirely different matter than are the institutionalized lies that characterize responsible elements of society. The dialectic of show business against society is synthesized in a remarkable climactic scene at the Wonderland Cafe" Michael Stern, Douglas Sirk.