Director Murnau was accused by the native Tahitians of building a house on ancient burial grounds and was a gruff, sometimes cruel person during filming, much of it directed at Chevalier. This did not endear himself to the natives as filming pressed on and there were many problems that plagued the production throughout. Murnau died a year after filming ended in a car crash in California, age 42, shortly before the premiere of the film. Several bad incidents happened to tourists who would stay at the Murnau house during the 1930's, including a suicide there, and the house burned down in 1937. Star Anne Chevalier soon embarked on a tour of America and appeared in a South Pacific revue for impresario [link=nm095606. However, she died in the 1970s, an alcoholic whose good looks were ruined by elephantiasis. Her costar, Matahi, got his widest exposure playing an island chief opposite Marlon Brando in the 1962 version of Gli ammutinati del Bounty (1962). Both Matahi and the actor who played Tabu's priest died natural deaths into old age, but each had visited a tahu'a, or priest, to exorcise them of any consequences of the death curse that had supposedly been placed on Murnau decades earlier.

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