In the prologue the four musketeers stand in a framing device, as a medieval stage booth, and D'Artagnan steps forward and speaks to the audience, then steps back and resumes his position with the other three, who remained motionless; after the mid-point intermission, the same situation is repeated, with D'Artagnan speaking again to the audience, finishing with the words, "once more, once more . . . ", after which the film resumes with the title card "20 years later". These were the first lines of dialogue ever spoken on film by Douglas Fairbanks, in his last silent film.
Nigel De Brulier had already played Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers (1921) and would again 14 years later in The Three Musketeers (1935). In addition, he also played Richelieu in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939).
Included among the American Film Institute's 2001 list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 Most Heart-Pounding American Movies.
Tiny Sandford took over the role of Porthos because the original actor from 1921 had died during this film's preproduction.
The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation (or more) copies of the film.
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