This film is one of over 200 titles in the list of independent feature films made available for television presentation by Advance Television Pictures announced in Motion Picture Herald 4 April 1942. At this time, television broadcasting was in its infancy, almost totally curtailed by the advent of World War II, and would not continue to develop until 1945-1946. Its earliest documented television broadcast occurred Sunday 4 January 1942 on New York City's pioneer television station WNBT (Channel 1); after WWII, WNBT gave television viewers another look at it Tuesday 6 September 1949, and it was frequently shown thereafter. It first aired in Dallas Friday 23 September 1949 on freshly launched KBTV (Channel 8), in Atlanta Monday 3 October 1949 on WSB (Channel 8) and in Los Angeles Saturday 28 January 1950 on KECA (Channel 7).
This film is an Eddie Dowling production; Paramount Pictures production number 1473. It was sold off by Paramount to Atlantic Pictures Corporation for re-release in 1938, and then to Astor Pictures Corporation for re-release and television presentation in 1940, and is now believed to be in the public domain.
In the original book "Buried Alive" the lead character is named Priam Farll. For some reason the producers changed the spelling of the character's last name in this film to "Farrel". When it was remade as "Holy Matrimony" in 1943, the spelling was back to "Farll".
The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation (or more) copies of the film.
The movie opened in New York on December 16 1933 at the Paramount theaters in Times Square and Brooklyn. The Times Square Paramount featured live entertainment between movie screenings. The week 'His Double Life' played, Ben Bernie, composer of 'Sweet Georgia Brown,' and his band performed. The band played hits like 'The Last Round Up' and 'Have You Ever Seen a Dream Walking?'