Lillian Gish and John Gilbert star in a tragic romance in which a tubercular seamstress sacrifices her life so that her lover, a bohemian playwright, might pen his masterpiece.

Gish, at the height of her influence with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, asserted significant control over the production, determining the story, director, cast, cinematography, and costume design.

Playwright Rodolphe and his painter roommate Marcel have trouble with Bernard, the landlord, who threatens to throw them out if they do not come up with the monthly rent that night.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producer Irving Thalberg matched the two biggest stars on the studio roster for the adaption of La bohème: John Gilbert, fresh from his triumphant success in The Big Parade (1925), with one of the greatest actresses in Hollywood, Lillian Gish, a veteran of legendary film director D. W. Griffith’s stock company.

[3] The highly sought after Gish, who extracted an $800,000 salary from Thalberg for two pictures, was M-G-M’s highest paid actor and could dictate her terms.

[4] Gish, who possessed creative and practical expertise in all aspects of film-making,[5][6] selected an adaption of Italian composer Giacomo Puccini's 1896 opera La bohème for her debut film with the studio.

Viewing two-reels of the as yet unreleased The Big Parade and accompanied by producer Thalberg, she was impressed and approved her pairing with Gilbert and much of the film’s supporting cast, as well enlisting director King Vidor.

[7] Vidor, a great admirer of D.W. Griffith, acquiesced when Gish insisted on full rehearsals in the "Master’s style" for each scene, but she abandoned the practice when cast and crew registered objections.

Though Vidor shot the sequences using Gish's innovation, they were emphatically rejected by the studio when preview audiences clamored for frequent and ardent contact between the stars.

When the cast was scheduled for a more conventional re-shooting, Gish is reported to have remarked, "Oh dear, I've got to go through another day of kissing John Gilbert.

(M-G-M's Mae Murray, a top ranking star, employed the talented cinematographer Oliver Marsh to handle her closeups with use of the "baby spot" lighting that erased signs of aging.

[10] The famous costume designer Erté, favored by the studio, failed to meet Gish's requirement that Mimi's clothing fully reflect her impoverished condition.

Three days in advance of the shooting, Gish stopped drinking fluids of any kind which helped her to physiologically produce "a sense of sickness".

Gish effectively conveyed the exhaustion and isolation of Mimi's dying struggle to return to her lover Rodolphe through the streets of Paris.

Gish's "rich, moving characterization" had the effect of trivializing the joie de vivre preoccupations that Gilbert and his bohemian companions portrayed.

[15] Co-stars said she was acting very arrogant, with Marion Davies saying that Gish brushed off Gilbert and did not want to give director King Vidor a hand.

[16] According to Robert Osborne, host of Turner Classic Movies, Gish prepared for the death scene by not drinking or eating for three days.