Desert footage was shot by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack in 1937 for an unmade film on the life of Lawrence of Arabia..
The opening sequence with a map showing North Africa imitates the opening of the previous year's Casablanca (1942) including utilizing Lou Marcelle as narrator.
The story upon which this film is based (The Fanatic of Fez) was set in Algiers, but when headlines about World War ll shifted focus to Casablanca and Damascus, the locale was changed to make the setting more topical.
This film recycles many exterior sets from what had been one of RKO'S most expensive pictures of the era, the 1939 version of Gunga Din (1939).