This film featured an early, experimental use of widescreen known as Magnascope. As the boats were lowered for the first chase after the whale, the screen widened; then, as Moby Dick suddenly closed in on Captain Ahab, the screen returned to its normal size. This process had been used for selected sequences of important features at certain first run film run theaters since late 1926 when it was inaugurated with Vaincre ou mourir (1926). There was no change in ratio. The screen got larger, by using a different lens, but lighting and magnification problems limited its use to special occasions.
Although the film was initially recorded on Vitaphone and intended for disc accompaniment, by the time of its release, so many theatres had opted for sound-on-film, that the opening credits had to be redone, and the image had to be cropped off the left side, in order to accommodate the sound-on-film system track, which was, by then, replacing the soon to be obsolete Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, and required a slightly narrower picture image as a result.
Although this title was among more than 700 Warner Bros. productions sold to Associated Artists in 1956 for re-release and/or television broadcast, this one, along with Le génie fou (1931) and Svengali (1931) remained in litigation until April 1959 because of their involvement with the estate of the late John Barrymore who had a financial interest in them when they were originally produced. By this time, the remake Moby Dick (1956), had already made its rounds in the theaters, and was beginning to pop up on local television, so this earlier version was rarely shown until the 1990s when it showed up first on Turner Network Television and, finally, on Turner Classic Movies, where it now receives an occasional airing.
A German-language version was made at Warners simultaneously. Ahab was played by Wilhelm (William) Dieterle in the Barrymore role, and Michael Curtiz replaced Bacon as director. German title was "Damon des Meeres" (Demon of the Seas).
For this film, the producers decided not to use the storyline of Herman Melville's original novel, but that of the John Barrymore silent film, Jim le harponneur (1926). "Moby Dick" would not be filmed as Melville wrote it until 1956.