Universal International's first film in CinemaScope.
Douglas Sirk once told an interviewer that this film had emerged from his desire to make a film out of Christopher Marlowe's sixteenth-century play "Tamburlaine", which he had directed on stage long before. Not too surprisingly, Universal had vetoed that desire, but offered him this subject instead.
Jeff Chandler and Jack Palance would co-star again in "Ten Seconds to Hell" (1959).