In the scene where a parrot flies into Sara's room off of Ram Dass' (Cesar Romero) shoulder, originally a small monkey was to be used. However, the monkey did not seem to like Shirley Temple and kept trying to bite her, so it was replaced by a parrot.
The reason Shirley Temple hadn't made a movie in Technicolor until this one was that the Technicolor company insisted that 1,000 foot-candle lights be used to get proper exposure on its film. These incredibly bright lights produced so much heat that the studio thought a child Temple's age would be hurt working under such conditions. So, with the cooperation of the Technicolor company, cinematographer Arthur C. Miller worked on a series of tests using lower levels of light, and finally discovered that 400 to 500 foot-candle lights would produce a satisfactory Technicolor image without generating the kind of heat that could injure Temple and the other children in the cast. Technicolor used a new high-speed film for this picture's trailer. This new film went on to be used for ...E o Vento Levou (1939).
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.
In wanting to fit in with the film's crew, Shirley Temple requested her own time card to punch in and out of work. Director Walter Lang gave in and she was issued her own card and used the studio's time recorder. When IBM heard of this they sent her a custom-made machine embossed with her name and special cards with her picture. Temple ignored these and continued to use her studio-issued cards.