Following the success of Spence's play on Broadway, production on a film adaptation was set to start in March 1927, while principal photography only began in August 1927.

The film received positive reviews from The Chicago Tribune, Variety, and Harrison's Reports while being dismissed by The New York Times.

[1][3] This plot summary combines details from the Library of Congress, the AFI Catalog of Feature Films, and the Harrison's Reports.

As Alice, Marsden and a friend of Townsend with Stevens gather about the library tablem they discover a note that warns them to leave before midnight.

[1] Spencer was previously done work in Broadway for The Ziegfeld Follies and made a bet with other playwrights over dinner that he could write a play in just three days.

Producer Al H. Woods overheard this and took him on his bet, leading to Spence writing the play The Gorilla which debuted on Broadway on April 28, 1925.

[1] The film eliminates the play-within-a-play gimmick and turns the black servant Jefferson into a disdainful British butler portrayed by Syd Crossley.

Originally, producer Edward Small thought of using a real Gorilla and contracted the person who captured and trained one for the Ringing Brother Circus.

[7] From contemporary reviews, the authors of American Silent Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature Films, 1913-1929 noted that "most critics felt The Gorilla, in addition to delivering a few scares, largely captured the zaniness of the play.

"[8] Some reviewers, such as the Los Angeles Times noted the film's basic premise of an old man killed in a house full of his prospective heirs was not unlike that of The Cat and the Canary, with the newspapers specifically noting that the film was stylistically similar as well, declaring tha "there are some seemingly similar tricks of having the shadows over the building, the play of lights in the windows and odd camera angles.