The film's working title was The Witch of Timbuctoo. Some televised airings of the film end after the exlposion of the toy shop. According to Hollywood Reporter, this was the last film completed by Henry B. Walthall before his death. Walthall died while working on his next film, China Clipper. Actress Grace Ford made her motion picture debut in The Devil-Doll. The Variety reviewer pointed out the similarity of the sequences in the film in which Lionel Barrymore's character, "Paul Lavond," pretends to be the elderly top shop proprietress "Mme. Mandelip," to aspects of the 1925 film The Unholy Three (see below), also directed by Tod Browning for M-G-M. In the earlier film, Lon Chaney's character disguised himself as the elderly proprietress of a bird shop.