This film was considered lost for many years until a copy, with the original tinting, was found in the late 1960s in the personal archive of Mary Pickford.
Dickie Moore was chosen to play the young John Barrymore when Joseph Reznick coincidentally saw him while picking up his mother to drive her to the studio. The only controversy occurred when young Moore as Barrymore was supposed to drink Coca-Cola instead of wine from his baby bottle; his mother asked that prune juice be substituted.
John Barrymore had a hand in an important decision during the film's production--the choice to cast Conrad Veidt as King Louis. Veidt had been a star in German films including a 1920 landmark German expressionistic film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). Barrymore admired Veidt's work and brought him to Hollywood to make his American debut. Veidt continued to work in the U.S. and Europe until his death in 1943, giving one of his last performances as Major Strasser in 1942's Casablanca (1942).