For the first week of filming, Jim Dale and Peter Butterworth were not speaking to one another, even though they had the majority of scenes together. Unbeknownst to either of them, at the start of shooting, Kenneth Williams had told Butterworth that Dale 'hated his guts' and he then told Dale the same thing about Butterworth. Eventually a suspicious Dale asked Butterworth on set, if Williams had said anything to him and they discovered what had happened, whilst Williams stood nearby laughing at them. According to Dale, they were furious with Williams, and Dale went as far as to chase Williams around the studio.
Filming of the Sahara Desert scenes took place on Camber Sands; ironically, filming was actually halted at one point because it was snowing. However, Gerald Thomas told cameraman Alan Hume to put a yellow filter on the camera and pretended it was a sandstorm(!)
The location filming took three weeks, the longest in Carry On history.
The regular cast members didn't enjoy Phil Silvers presence onset. He had short-term memory loss during the making of the film and had to have boards placed behind the camera so he could read his lines. Kenneth Williams publicly rebuked him both on-set and in his personal diaries for this. He also kept losing his contact lenses in the sands, necessitating cast and crew to help him look for them. There was also the fact that he was being paid £30,000, considerably more than the regulars, which caused animosity.
Captain le Pice's first name is unstated in the film, but it was confirmed by Peter Rogers to be "Gerrard".