John Wayne took the name of his production company, Batjac, from this film's shipping firm. The original spelling though was "Batjak", a likely portmanteau of "Batavia" and "Jayakarta", both being the old names of the capital of the Dutch East Indies at the time (as of 2009 it is Jakarta, Indonesia).
The movie was filmed in black and white in an attempt to make the studio sets less obvious.
The rubber octopus used in this movie was later stolen by Edward D. Wood Jr.'s crew and used in Bride of the Monster. They forgot to steal the motor that ran the tentacles though, so Bela Lugosi was forced to wrap the tentacles around him while he "fought" the beast.