"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60-minute radio adaptation of the movie onApril 10, 1939, with C. Aubrey Smith and Douglass Dumbrille reprising their film roles.
Henry Wilcoxon was initially cast as Lt. Forsythe but was dissatisfied with the role and was replaced by Franchot Tone. The official reason was that he had a scheduling conflict with the movie The Crusades. Four days of retakes with Tone were required.
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.
Paramount hired hundreds of Paiute Native American tribesmen from nearby reservations and Indian (mostly Hindu) fruit and olive pickers from California's Napa and Imperial Valleys to play the Afridi tribesmen in the battle sequences.
Reported to be Adolf Hitler's favorite film.
The verse Lt. Forsythe recites in the dungeon is from a poem by William Ernest Henley, entitled 'England, My England'. This is the complete poem: "What have I done for you, / England, my England? / What is there I would not do, / England, my own? / With your glorious eyes austere, / As the Lord were walking near, / Whispering terrible things and dear / As the Song on your bugles blown, / England - / Round the world on your bugles blown! Where shall the watchful sun, / England, my England, / Match the master-work you've done, / England, my own? / When shall he rejoice agen / Such a breed of mighty men / As come forward, one to ten, / To the Song on your bugles blown, / England - / Down the years on your bugles blown? Ever the faith endures, / England, my England: - / 'Take and break us: we are yours, / England, my own! / Life is good, and joy runs high / Between English earth and sky: / Death is death; but we shall die / To the Song of your bugles blown, / England - / To the stars on your bugles blown!' They call you proud and hard, / England, my England: / You with worlds to watch and ward, / England, my own! / You whose mail'd hand keeps the keys / Of such teeming destinies, / You could know nor dread nor ease / Were the Song on your bugles blown, / England - / Round the Pit on your bugles blown! Mother of Ships who
This is the film where Douglass Dumbrille says, "We have ways of making men talk," although everybody remembers it as, "We have ways of making you talk."