 Gaskell reveals the gold was safe all along, hidden inside the ship's cargo (the toolbox of a steamroller stowed on deck).Irving Thalberg had worked on the film since 1930 when he assigned three different writers to come up with three different treatments.By 1931 Thalberg had decided on the one storyline and spent the next four years working on a script with two dozen writers, half a dozen directors and three supervisors.