Lillian Gish did not want to make the picture and D.W. Griffith had to work hard to persuade her to do it. She later said she was glad she consented.
D.W. Griffith saw Lillian Gish using her smile gesture with her fingers and decided to incorporate it into the filming.
Filming took 18 days and nights. Donald Crisp's scenes were filmed at night because he was directing another film during the day.
One of the films listed in "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Jay Schneider.
The film was produced by D.W. Griffith for Adolph Zukor's Artcraft company, a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. But when Griffith delivered the final print of the film to Zukor, the producer was outraged. "How dare you deliver such a terrible film to me!" Zukor raged. "Everybody in the picture dies!" Infuriated, Griffith left Zukor's office and returned the next day with $250,000 in cash, which he threw on Zukor's desk. "Here," Griffith shouted, "If you don't want the picture, I'll buy it back from you." Zukor accepted the offer, thus making this the first film released by United Artists, the production company formed in 1919 by Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Griffith. It was a remarkably successful film, both critically and at the box office.
The film's premiere engagement included a live prologue featuring a dance routine performed by actress Carol Dempster. During Dempster's dance the stage was illuminated by blue and gold footlights. Later, during the screening of the film, a stagehand accidentally switched on those footlights and the movie screen tinted the film in an unusual way. D.W. Griffith, standing in the rear of the auditorium, was so surprised and delighted at the blue and gold-tinted effect that he ordered all copies of the film to be tinted in those colors during certain key sequences.
The only makeup Richard Barthelmess used in order to appear Oriental was a very tight rubber band stretched around his forehead, pulling his facial features slightly upward. The rubber band was cleverly concealed beneath his cap.
This film was selected to the National Film Registry, Library of Congress, in 1996.
This movie was originally made for Adolph Zukor at Paramount Pictures. D.W. Griffith bought it from him in order to release it through his new company, United Artists.
While filming the closet scene, Lillian Gish's performance of pure terror was so realistic that D.W. Griffith was compelled to shout back at her and urge her further. A passerby heard this going on and, convinced that something terrible was going on, had to be restrained from entering the studio.