8th entry in Universal's Crime Club Productions series. In 1937, Universal had entered into a deal with the pulp publisher to select up to 4 of it's novels annually for production as B-pictures. Producer Irving Starr was selected to head this unit. This entry, based on the novel, "Murder in Surgery," was the 8th out of a total of 11 Crime Club novels the studio produced under the deal.
Shooting began Feb. 2, 1939, released a month later, on Mar. 17.
Part of the original Shock Theater package of 52 Universal titles released to television in 1957, followed a year later with Son of Shock, which added 20 more features.
Universal Pictures production number P869.
Six years earlier, Bruce Cabot and Frank Reicher were among the stars of King Kong (1933) in the respective roles of Jack Driscoll and Captain Englehorn, joined here also by Helen Mack, the lead actress of Son of Kong (1933) in which she worked with Reicher reprising his Englehorn role. Midpoint between "Kong" and this film, Cabot and Reicher were castmates on one other film, Sinner Take All (1936), that time joined by three bit players from "Kong"--Lee Phelps, Alexander Pollard and Paddy O'Flynn. And Cabot would work with Mack two more times--in Mickey the Kid (1939) (also with "Kong" actor James Flavin who had played Second Mate Briggs under Cabot's Driscoll character) and Divorce (1945) (with "Kong" extra Jean Fenwick).