Terrible heat and sickness took their toll on the cast and crew. The 130 people had 920 sick calls during the filming.
When Darryl F. Zanuck appeared as the mystery guest on the "What's My Line?" TV game show just before this film was released, he said the temperatures during filming reached over 130 degrees in the daytime and only got down to 95 at night. The cast and crew were in French Equatorial Africa for 6 months making the movie and he vowed never to return.