Several actors hired to perform in this movie, "Devil's Island (1939)," were not seen, despite most having character names. These were Lawrence Grant (First Official), Jack Mower (Sergeant), John J. Richardson, Jack Wise (Convict) and Theodore von Eltz (Second Official).
The movie is a spiritual cousin of the contemporaneous "Mad Doctor" pictures Karloff was making for Columbia, in which he generally played a doctor who was condemned for his experiments in trying to cure illnesses or prolong life.
When released in 1939, this film caused strong protests from the French government over the depiction of their penal colony. Not wanting to harm their marketing of other films in France or its colonies, Warner Brothers withdrew this film from overseas distribution until the fall of France the following year in World War 2.
Rolla Gourvitch, who plays the colonel's daughter, appeared in only two films in her brief career, this and The Life of Emile Zola (1937). Oddly, both are about prisoners on Devil's Island.
Filmed late June-early August 1938 (copyright 1939), Boris Karloff's first screen role since The Invisible Menace (1938) in late 1937. His next two features were Mr. Wong, Detective (1938) (copyright 1938) and Son of Frankenstein (1939) (copyright 1939).