The movie was announced in July 1956 and inspired by the story of the Tsavo maneaters recounted in the 1954 book African Bush Adventures by J.A.

)[4] A screenplay was done by Peter Viertel, who had worked on The African Queen, and written a novel of the experiences called White Hunter, Black Heart.

[6] Co-stars Anthony Newley and Anne Aubrey were under contract to Warwick, and had just made Idol on Parade for the company.

This upset Chief Thomas Marealle of the Chagga tribe, on whose lands the film was shot, and he made an official complaint.

[13] According to Jeffrey Richards, movies such as Killers of Kilimanjaro pushed the narrative that the British were not in East Africa to further their own ends, but instead perpetuated the myth that they were there to protect the natives from the evil Arab slavers.