The film was produced and distributed by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Paul Sloane[1][2] It is based upon the 1925 play of the same name by Harry Chapman Ford.

[2][3] Captain Corbin (Edeson), who operates the tramp cargo ship Garden of Eden, has raised his daughter Eve (Joy) as a boy.

After learning about men after reading some romance novels belonging to the cook Cookie (Harris), she goes ashore in a Chinese port to find her true love and spies American Bob Britton (Boyd), whom she then has kidnapped to augment the ship's crew.

[5] The studio developed projects with roles suitable for her “Leatrice Joy bob”,[5] and Eve's Leaves was the second of five films before she regrew her hair.

Intertitles featuring quotes from stereotype Chinese characters are in a racist fictional Asian dialect that today would be considered offensive.