Errol Flynn was initially excited about going to India, and turned down the studio's offer of the lead in King Solomon's Mines (1950) (which ultimately went to Stewart Granger). However, all of Flynn's scenes in this film were shot in the studio and matched in the editing room with long-shot second-unit footage of his double.
MGM originally announced the film in 1938 as a vehicle for Freddie Bartholomew and Robert Taylor, but World War II saw this put on hold. In 1942 it was reactivated to star Mickey Rooney, Conrad Veidt (as Red Lama) and Basil Rathbone. However this was postponed out of fear of offending Indians, and also war-time allies the Soviets. In 1948 the Indian government approved the film and the Cold War meant it was permissible to have Russian villains.
Although the movie was financially successful, the 40-year-old Errol Flynn was widely considered too old for his character, as well as miscast as an Indian.
Richard Hale serves as the off-screen narrator in the first half of the film and plays the character of Errol Flynn's disloyal employee Hassan Bey. However, even though they are ostensibly different people, the narration stops after Bay is killed.
In the master shot of the scene in which Errol Flynn enters the tent with a bowl of food for Dean Stockwell to give the lama, practical joker Flynn had piled it high with steaming fresh camel dung. Stockwell played the scene as written but it cost Flynn $500 because he had bet with the crew that he could make the young actor crack up laughing.