This movie was made prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday 7 December 1941. The movie was first released at its world premiere on 26 September 1941, about 2½ months prior to the Pearl Harbor attack.
When this movie was made, America was not part of World War II. At this time, a number of Hollywood studios were pro-American involvement in the war. This movie is one of a number of films made during the late 1930s and early 1940s that represented pro-American intervention in the war. These films include: A Yank in the R.A.F. (which came late in the cycle), Man Hunt, Foreign Correspondent, The Mortal Storm, Confessions of a Nazi Spy and Sergeant York.
Working on this movie, a 20th Century Fox studio camera operator for the flying sequences of this film, Otto Kanturek and his uncredited assistant, aerial photographer Jack Parry, were both killed in a military plane crash when a Hurricane fighter collided with their Avro Anson camera plane over Cawston, Norfolk, England on 26 June 1941 and this happened after filming for this picture. Other reports state that according to 20th Century-Fox studio publicity, these events involved the two flying to England to shoot airplane fight sequences and after this they, in a dogfight with the R.A.F., German aircraft shot them down and they were killed.