 Louis B. Mayer was very unhappy about the films political content,  thinking it uncommercial. Katharine Hepburn too felt that the  storyline was too dull and needed to be pepped up with some romance.  She complained to producer Victor Saville about this but he ignored  her comments, so Hepburn went directly to Mayer who was only too  happy to make the film into a more conventional Hollywood romance.