This was the first feature film to be made by J. Arthur Rank, who up until then had only made religious short films. He was very dissatisfied with the studio facilities he was given at Elstree; and because of his enthusiasm for continued film-making, decided to have his own studios. And so he joined with a man called Henry Boot, and together they founded and built Pinewood Studios.
The fishing jersey is known locally as a "gansey." Each fishing jersey had a pattern unique to the family to identify corpses. The jersey pattern used in the film for the Lunn family was the Duke pattern.
The lifeboat is shown going to the rescue of a large ship. There were no model shots in a studio tank, it was all done for real running a steamship around in the bay for the cameras. It was an ambitious project for a low budget 1935 film, but some of the shots of the captain on the deck appear to show him on the end of Whitby pier.
Local fishermen helped with baiting nets, lines and pots and often sailed their vessels in treacherous weather conditions to help the film's feeling of authenticity.
This film received its earliest documented telecast and its USA premiere Monday 28 August 1944 on New York City's pioneer television station WNBT (Channel 1). It first aired in Washington DC Sunday 18 April 1948 on WNBW (Channel 4) and In both Philadelphia and Baltimore Saturday 29 May 1948 on WPTZ (Channel 3) and WBAL (Channel 11).