For a while, the film set the record for the highest grossing film in history. Within two weeks, over 200,000 visitors had seen the film, and the gross was $113,571.32. The previous record holder was Robin Hood (1922) with a total gross of $109,750.88.
Original release prints had some very careful hand-coloring, added by artist Gustav Brock to each frame. These accents included adding red and blue to an American flag and adding a slight blush to Marion Davies's cheeks during a scene in which her character overhears a risqué story. No surviving prints feature Brock's work.
A full-sized replica of Robert Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont, was built and sailed down the Hudson River with Marion Davies, Harrison Ford, and about 2 dozen others aboard.
Production was seriously thrown off track on February 18, 1923, when a fire broke out at the Cosmopolitan-International Studio and destroyed nearly the entire plant. The sets, production offices, storerooms containing props and costumes, and even Joseph Urban's research library, were irreparably damaged. The production decamped to two nearby rental facilities, as well as the 23rd Regiment Armory in Brooklyn, and the film was completed on time to meet its original release date.
Despite the February 18, 1923 fire that destroyed the Cosmopolitan Studio in New York and the massive sets for this film, the negative was miraculously saved.
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