Director Clarence Brown called the film " . . . the hardest film I ever made." He was in charge of 2000 people in weather that was -60 F in 50-mph winds at 11,600-foot altitudes.
Four stuntmen were killed while filming the Copper River rapids scenes. Of the four, two bodies were never found. This is according to the documentary Hazard of the Game (1980) and verified by two stunt men from the scene, one being future producer Paul Malvern.
Lou Costello was Harry Carey's stunt double in the window scene. He later doubled Dolores Del Río in a scene in which she drove a wagon.
When premiered as a two-part roadshow attraction at the Astor Theatre in New York City on 20 March 1928, Part 1 was 66 minutes, followed by an intermission, and Part 2 was 61 minutes. Two sequences were projected on "Fantom Screen", a device on rollers by which the screen appears to double in size by rolling to the front of the stage, widens out, then reduces to normal size by retreating back again to its normal position. The transition is achieved while intertitles are on the screen, thus disguising the change.
During the fight between Harry Carey as Jack Locasto and Ralph Forbes as Larry, Ralph Forbes throws a lamp at Harry Carey that breaks open and sets Carey on fire. Most modern audiences don't know that the lamp was a glass kerosene lamp and could work like a Molotov Cocktail. In the late 1800s, kerosene lamps were a main source of indoor lighting worldwide until they were gradually replaced by electric lighting in the 1900s. Some of the more beautiful kerosene lamps survived by being wired for electric bulbs.
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