The film was produced by the Rank Organisation and was shot at Pinewood Studios with location shooting around Whakatāne.

The film's sets were designed by the art director Maurice Carter with costumes by Julie Harris.

Annakin said it "was not my greatest triumph as a filmmaker, but an enjoyable experience in living — something I was beginning to recognise as just as important as the actual movie process.

The Māori chief, Hongi Tepe (Inia Te Wiata), is impressed enough to adopt Wayne and allot him a portion of land.

Arriving there, Wayne and Clarke are set up by the corrupt Captain Bryce on charges of murdering the natives and bringing Britain into disrepute because they have a severed Māori head in their trunk.

They sail over, with Clarke, on a private ship and Wayne builds a house close to the Māori tribe he had met before.

The Becket returns and Wayne confronts Bryce, who is found to be smuggling severed heads of dead Māori captives into Britain as potentially profitable 'souvenirs'.

News later arrives by the six-monthly ship that Wayne has been appointed a justice of the peace for his locality, and also that he and Clarke have been exonerated by a court of appeal.

Hongi Tepe sees them and wants to kill his wife, as is the tribal custom, but his new-found Christianity sways him to let her live.

Wishart accidentally shoots a Māori's dog (thinking it is a goat) and the owner starts fighting him.

Annakin said "It was based on a novel which was historically true, but the script which playwright Bill Fairchild was writing seemed to me to be full of cliches and boring characters.

[4] Jack Hawkins was attracted to the role because it represented a change of pace from the war films in which he had become a star.

[7] It was subsequently decided to film some sequences in New Zealand using a skeleton crew of sixteen plus Hawkins, Noel Purcell and Laya Raki.