This was the first of 12 features, made over a six-year period (1949-55), starring Johnny Sheffield as Bomba that were made by "Poverty Row" studio Monogram Pictures. Sheffield had made his last Tarzan movie two years earlier. After the last Bomba feature was made in 1955, it would mark the end of Sheffield's film career.
As an example of the innovative ways "Poverty Row" studios utilized to cut costs, Monogram had a second-unit crew shoot about a dozen angles of star Johnny Sheffield swinging through the jungle on various vines. These scenes were then used for not only this movie but all 11 subsequent Bomba features, saving Monogram thousands in production costs.
When they optioned about 20 of the short Bomba novels, Monogram Pictures had planned to shoot them three per year and produce them in color. They eventually settled for two titles annually and filming in black-and-white. As an example of how popular the low budget Jungle Boy programmers were, studio records say this first film cost only about $80,000 and grossed around $500,000 - a huge profit margin for the Poverty Row studio.
To handle this first entry in their Bomba film franchise, Monogram Pictures assigned fledgling producer Walter Mirisch. After it grossed more than five times what it had cost, Mirisch became the producer for the entire Bomba series, and eventually parlayed his success with Monogram into a career that included an Academy Award as the producer of 1967's Best Picture winner In the Heat of the Night.
The original novel, initiated by Statemeyer Syndicate, was written by a series of ghostwriters (this volume being attributed to either John Duffield or [Howard Garris] or both) under the pseudonym "Roy Rockwood" in 1926. It was the first volume of a very successful series that lasted until 1938. The publishers were Cupples and Leon.