According to director Allan Dwan, producer Benedict Bogeaus tricked him, the actors and crew members into working for low pay by claiming the project was actually a two-part pilot for a TV series. Bogeaus was caught by the heads of the Mexican movie unions, who read the script, realized it was for a feature film, and demanded that everyone employed on it be paid the higher feature-film rates. As a result, Dwan had to shoot the film in one week instead of five, and use only already existing sets.
Made in 1958 but not released until 1961 because of the financial failure of producer Benedict Bogeaus' original distributor, RKO. Bogeaus sat on the film for three years until he was able to sell it to Columbia for a flat fee in 1961.