A Crime Club Mystery. In 1937, Universal had acquired the rights to select 4 books from the publisher of the pulp whodunits' annual output of 52 novels. This was the second one produced in the deal. A total of 11 Crime Club mysteries would be filmed. The Crime Club deal ended with the release of The Witness Vanishes (1939) in September, 1939.
At one point the sheriff mistakenly refers to two suspects as "Wallace and Simpson". This is a topical pun, referring to the Duchess of Windsor (born Wallis Simpson), the American socialite the Duke of Windsor (at the time King Edward VIII) had recently abdicated the English throne so they could marry (he could not wed a twice-divorced foreigner and remain King, so he chose love). They remained married until his death in 1972, 35 years later.
Most of the opening score is taken from Franz Waxman's score from "The Bride of Frankenstein" (1935).
This was the first of four Universal Crime Club features to be telecast on New York City's DuMont Television Station WABD (Channel 5), making its television debut Monday 18 November 1946, marking the first breakthrough of major studio films being telecast in the postwar era; this actually came about because, by this time, these four titles had fallen into the hands of Astor Pictures Corporation, who had been distributing them theatrically for the past four years. The three that followed were The Lady in the Morgue (1938), The Westland Case (1937) and Danger on the Air (1938). On the West Coast, The Black Doll first saw the light of television in Los Angeles Saturday 28 September 1947 on DuMont's KTLA (Channel 5), in Washington DC Monday 4 August 1947 on WTTG (Channel 5), in Chicago Monday 3 May 1948 on WGN (Channel 9), in Philadelphia Friday 18 June 1948 on WPTZ (Channel 3), in Lowell MA (serving the Boston Area) Friday 1 October 1948 on WBZ (Channel 4), in Fort Worth Saturday 6 November 1948 on WSPD (Channel 13), in Memphis Saturday 11 December 1948 on WMCT (Channel 4), in Detroit Thursday 28 July 1949 on WJBK (Channel 2) and in San Francisco Wednesday 7 September 1949 on KPIX (Channel 5). It would not be for another several years years later that Universal itself, and the rest of the majors, opened their vaults to their longtime rival.