According to a production directory in the 9 March 1929 Exhibitors Herald-World, shooting began on 5 February 1929, under the working title King of the Khyber Rifles. Filming took place at Fox's studio at 1401 North Western Avenue in Hollywood, CA, according to the May 1929 Motion Picture, and was director John Ford's first "talkie." The camera crew was listed in International Photographer. For the role of the "muezzin" (a man who calls Muslims to prayer) Fox hired "vaudeville and concert tenor" Josef Diskay, the 16 February 1929 Motion Picture News noted. "Although it is a dialogue picture, there will be a silent negative as well," the 9 February Exhibitors Herald-World reported. "Three and a half reels of the picture will be devoted to speaking lines."
       The 4 May 1929 Exhibitors Herald-World, in an item datelined 30 April 1929, reported that the film, under its new title The Black Watch, "was previewed this week at the Riverside theatre in Riverside, Ca., and drew exceptionally fine comments from Hollywood people who made the 60-mile trip....Fox has made a rule recently eliminating local previews of big pictures." The item added that the film would be going into Fox's Carthay Circle Theater at 6316 San Vicente Boulevard in Los Angeles later in the week.
       A full-page advertisement in the 12 May 1929 Film Daily called The Black Watch an "All-Talking Movietone Feature" whose story was "a masterpiece of melody and dialog." Others ads for the film mentioned that dialogue was written by James K. McGuinness and "staged by" Lumsden Hare.
       The Black Watch opened for "reserved seat engagements" on 6 May 1929 at Fox's Carthay Circle Theater, and would be released nationwide three weeks later, on 26 May 1929, according to an ad in the 5 May 1929 Film Daily. Another ad in the 22 May 1929 Variety announced that The Black Watch opened that night "for extended run at $2" at the Gaiety Theatre in New York City's Time Square, and would be released four days later on 26 May 1929.
       The National Board of Review Magazine listed The Black Watch as a nine-reel film.
       During this period of her career, Myrna Loy frequently played Asian and South Asian characters.
       The London, England correspondent in the 31 July 1929 Variety reported that the film was released as King of the Khyber Rifles in the United Kingdom: "This picture couldn't be shown here under the Fox title because there is a famous Scotch regiment called the Black Watch, and in the story one of the officers is branded as a coward."
       Talbot Mundy's novel was also the basis of the 1954 Twentieth Century-Fox film King of the Khyber Rifles, directed by Henry King and starring Tyrone Power, Michael Rennie and Terry Moore (see entry).