One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.
The 1997 documentary, The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender, uses footage of Gary Cooper and George Raft hanging by their thumbs in Souls at Sea to illustrate the homoerotic possibilities in showing bare-chested men suffering in bondage. There's also a suggestion that the relationship in Hollywood movies between the leading man and his male best friend, while not overtly sexual, is often stronger and deeper than the relationship between the leading man and his leading lady.