Wanting the film to have a gritty realism, William Wyler insisted on filming in the Mojave Desert and the Panamint Valley in August temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
The real Western town of Bodie, California stood in for the fictional town of New Jerusalem. The production utilized much of the town's main street and included both exterior and interior footage of the Bodie Bank, which burned in 1932, and Methodist Church. The bank robbery sequence features an elaborate horse-drawn hearse which is still on display in the town's museum.
Peter B. Kyne's bestselling 1913 novel, "The Three Godfathers", had been adapted twice before as successful Universal Silents, The Three Godfathers (1916), a six-reeler, and a John Ford remake, Marked Men (1919). The story first appeared in the 23 November 1912 edition of The Saturday Evening Post.
A silent version was also made for those theaters that had not yet installed sound equipment. At the time, there were still many theaters, especially in smaller and rural markets that had not yet invested in expensive sound equipment - and there were still competing technologies to deliver the sound.