This serial was also released as two features: The Return of Chandu (1934) (using Chs. 1-4) and Chandu on the Magic Island (1935), using Chs. 5-12).
It has been claimed that Bela Lugosi couldn't drive, yet he is clearly seen driving a convertible in many scenes here, through a winding road.
This feature was not only composed by editing together the first four chapters of the same-titled serial, but in fact the episodes were specifically written so that, spliced together, the result had the pacing and dialog of a b-feature film. Producer Sol Lesser developed this approach so that this film could be marketed either as a free-standing feature, as a feature-length first episode, with no loss of continuity or resolution in either case. Or the source serial could be booked in the traditional 12-episode format.
Chapter 10 is 20 minutes long and spends ten minutes in recaps: the first seven minutes are a longer recap than usual of the previous week's episode; the next three minutes are flashbacks to Chapter 1.