It was written by Agnes Christine Johnston and Max Marcin, based upon Selma Lagerlöf's 1914 novel The Emperor of Portugallia (MGM actually purchased the story rights in 1922).

The film was shot on location in the Sacramento River Delta, Lake Arrowhead and the Laurel Canyon area of Los Angeles.

When she was a child, she and her father used to role-play being the Emperor and Empress of Portugallia, a fairy tale land where dreams come true, and a neighboring farm boy named August would play the Prince.

Glory grows up to be a beautiful young woman, and both August and Jan's vile landlord Lars (Ian Keith) vie for her attention.

Jan incurs some debts he cannot pay, and to save him from bankruptcy, his daughter temporarily moves to the big city supposedly to get a job (finally allowing Lars to lead her into prostitution).

Glory boards the local steamboat at the docks in order to leave town, and her father follows her, falling off the pier in his haste and drowning.

---Moving Picture World "It seems as if Mr. Chaney had had too much to say about his own performance, for he overacts and his make-up, consisting largely of a rich crop of iron gray hair and whiskers and beard, seem to fit well without looking as if they belonged to him.

---Film Daily "(Chaney) does not resort to the grotesque, but from the first sequences, where he appears as the tiller of the soil who neither loves nor hates....to the last when he becomes a demented old man, his interpretation is pathetically convincing."