According to a contemporary New York Times article, the first half of the film shows "Armenia as it was before Turkish and German devastation, and led up to the deportation of priests and thousands of families into the desert.

However, almost 70 years later, Mardiganian revealed to film historian Anthony Slide that the scene was inaccurate: The Turks didn't make their crosses like that.

Gates later ghostwrote a 20-part newspaper series for "Queen of the Artists' Studios" Audrey Munson in which he described the filming of the crucifixion scene in the California desert.

He stated that one of the twelve art models employed for the scene, one Corinne Gray, died several days later from influenza as a result of exposure during filming.

[4] The initial New York performance of the eight-reel[6] (approximately two-hour) silent film took place on February 16, 1919, in the ballroom of the Plaza Hotel, with society leaders Mrs. Oliver Harriman and Mrs. George W. Vanderbilt serving as co-hostesses on behalf of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief.

In reversing the board's ban, the decision of the judge stated: The court finds it a fact and a question of law that there is nothing in the scenes which make them sacrilegious, obscene, indecent or immoral, or such nature as to tend to debase or corrupt morals.

In 2009, the Armenian Genocide Resource Center of Northern California released a DVD containing the fragment, which has been restored, edited, and captioned.

[13] In 2014, Slide, the film historian, published the original screenplay in a volume that also reprints the book Ravished Armenia, and includes a discussion of Mardiganian's work.