The film was released only a few weeks before the start of the Second World War. It has been widely perceived that the villainous politician in the story, whom the Four Just Men have targeted, is an archetypal appeaser type, sympathetic to the Nazis and in a war, likely to prove a traitor to Britain. When the film was re-released in 1944, an extended ending was added, featuring overt propaganda elements, including footage of RAF fighters.
Edgar Wallace's novel (his first) had been published over thirty years before this film was made. There, the four just men are a group of assassins - the fourth member of the group is a small-time criminal called Thery (not Terry, as in this film) who has been blackmailed into joining the other three. This film adapts the plot to the world of the late 1930s, and the four just men are now a group of slightly unusual patriots fighting the (Nazi) enemies of Britain. Of the four leading roles, only one character (Leon Poiccard) has the same name as his equivalent in the novel.
According to Gore Vidal, the American president John F. Kennedy was a great fan of Edgar Wallace's novel, which he had read in boyhood, and would recount its plot in great detail, challenging his listeners to guess the ingenious method whereby the villainous politician is killed.
Final film of Ellaline Terriss .
This film's earliest documented USA telecasts took place when it launched American Broadcasting Company's First Nighter Theater series in New York City and in Chicago Wednesday 18 October 1950 on WJZ (Channel 7) and on WENR (Channel 7); it first aired in Baltimore Sunday 29 October 1950 on WAAM (Channel 13) , in Los Angeles Monday 31 October 1950 on KECA (Channel 7), in Cincinnati Sunday 5 November 1950 on WLW-T (Channel 4), and in San Francisco Monday 6 November 1950 on KGO (Channel 7).