Trivia

After completing filming on the tropical island, they returned to the MGM lot at Culver City, where W.S. Van Dyke shot some additional material, including a typhoon at sea and a shipwreck. Then the studio decided to make White Shadows in the South Seas (1928) their first sound film, so they added a synchronized soundtrack consisted of a romantic score by William Axt and David Mendoza, with a few sound effects such as wind howling, a storm, trees ruffling and the words "Hello" and "wait."

This was MGM's first sound picture, and it premiered in Hollywood at Sid Grauman's Chinese Theater on Friday, 3 Aug 1928. It is known for being the first MGM film to be released with a pre-recorded soundtrack.

Though the film's credits claim it was shot on location in the Marquesas Islands with "authentic" islanders, it was actually shot 900 miles away in Tahiti.

This was the first movie in which audiences heard the MGM lion roar during the introduction. This lion was Jackie, recorded July 31, 1928, and he was the second lion used, chosen as a lookalike for the first, Slats, who spanned the silent era. It is Jackie that is seen and heard in the introduction to The Wizard of Oz (1939). Leo followed in 1956 and was the longest-living lion used, gracing the MGM opening from 1956 on.

Because there were no sound facilities in Hollywood, Douglas Shearer took the completed silent film to New Jersey, where he added a synchronized music score and sound effects.

The movie was preceded by an exotic prologue, The Tropics (1928), which starred Kenneth Thomas Olds, the most famous of all male Hawaiian dancers, and the Brox Sisters from the Ziegfeld Follies. It featured Samoan chieftains, 100 native dancers and instrumentalists of the South Seas Isles who were brought to Hollywood especially for the presentation, and a "Gigantaphone," the largest Victrola in the world. The film ran nightly for the duration of "White Shadow's" engagement.