When Jacques Feyder obtained the rights to film Benoit's novel, he took the radical step of insisting that the film should be made on location in the Sahara, a strategy which no film-maker had previously used for a project on this scale.
When Jacques Feyder secured the rights to bring Benoit's story to the screen, he opted for an innovative method by filming on-site in the Sahara, a technique that had not been attempted before on such a grand scale.