the film was made by warner brothers as a programmer. it was a remake of archer's play "the green goddess", updating the action to modern iraq. it encountered strong objections from the owi, who charged that its plot was unintentionally both anti-british and anti-arab and was potentially offensive to america's ally and to neutral arab countries. the film have already been granted an export licence, but pressure from the state department overrode this. consequently, it was the only warners' film not to receive an overseas release during the 1940s.