Fritz Lang returned to Germany to direct these films, which together tell the story of a German architect, the Indian maharaja for whom he is supposed to build schools and hospitals, and the Eurasian dancer who comes between them.

Architect Harold Berger travels to India, hired by Maharajah Chandra to build schools and hospitals.

Meanwhile, scheming courtiers, including the Maharaja's older brother, believe that Chandra's potential marriage to the dancer could become a pretext for toppling his reign.

Using the secret tunnel, Berger escapes with Seetha into the desert, just before his sister and her husband, an architect who works with him, arrive in Eschnapur.

[5] Interiors were shot at the Spandau Studios in Berlin with sets designed by the art directors Helmut Nentwig and Willy Schatz.

[citation needed] Lang's Indian epic is based on work he did forty years earlier on a silent version of Das Indische Grabmal.

Lang did not control the final form of that earlier version which was a commercial and critical failure at the time, although its reputation has grown in recent years.

For the remake, Lang also divided the story into two parts that each run about 100 minutes, a length modern audiences can more easily accept.