Lillian Gish learned that her mother had had a stroke in London and her sister, Dorothy Gish, urged her to get there on the first available boat. When Lillian informed director Victor Sjöström of the need to finish the film quickly, he created a shooting schedule that crammed two weeks worth of shooting into three days of non-stop work. The crew worked without complaint so that she could finish the film early and catch the earliest possible train to New York.
Greta Garbo was an almost daily visitor to the set, in order to be near her friend Lars Hanson, and to speak Swedish to alleviate her homesickness.
Lillian Gish's puritan costume from this film was at one point housed in The Crocker Museum in Hollywood, the first museum dedicated to props and other artifacts from American films. The museum was started by actor Harry Crocker, circa 1928, and was located on Sunset Blvd.
The woman who turned in Hester for her behavior on the Sabbath is called a "wood-pussy", which means skunk.