The film is an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel where Midwesterner Nick Carraway is lured into the lavish world of his Long Island neighbor, Jay Gatsby.

The film's plot diverges from Fitzgerald's novel in several key respects: Daisy renounces Gatsby when she learns he is a bootlegger as opposed to when he demands she declare that she never loved Tom.

"[2] The screenplay was written by Becky Gardiner and Elizabeth Meehan and was based on Owen Davis' stage play treatment of The Great Gatsby.

"[5] Hall also describes a scene in which Gatsby "tosses twenty-dollar gold pieces into the [swimming pool] water, and you see a number of the girls diving for the coins.

A clever bit of comedy is introduced by a girl asking what Gatsby is throwing into the water, and as soon as this creature hears that they are real gold pieces she unhesitatingly plunges into the pool to get a share.

[6] Green deemed Brenon's production to be "serviceable film material" and "a good, interesting gripping cinema exposition of the type certain to be readily acclaimed by the average fan, with the usual Long Island parties and the rest of those high-hat trimmings thrown in to clinch the argument.

[6] Although the film received generally positive reviews from critics, novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald purportedly loathed Brenon's cinematic adaptation of his novel.

[7] While living in a Los Angeles bungalow with his wife Zelda Sayre in early 1927, the couple viewed the film at a nearby theater and walked out midway through the screening.