Mary Pickford's Elizabethan gown is the most expensive costume ever made for a silent film. Designed by Mitchell Leisen and embroidered with real seed pearls, it cost $32,000 to produce.
In Allan Forrest's opening scene, the broad bare shoulders seen as his wound is being dressed actually belong to Mary Pickford's husband Douglas Fairbanks, who was busy filming on the next-door set and was brought in as "body double" when Forrest's own physique was felt to be inadequate.
The stunt where Dorothy rides her horse up the steps and onto the three-foot wide wall was performed by Mary Pickford herself, after the stuntwoman's horse damaged a leg.
Pickford had intended this project for recently arrived German director Ernst Lubitsch but he didn't like the material so instead the two landed up doing Rosita as his first US film .
This film is based upon a 1902 novel by Charles Major. The novel itself featured lady Dorothy Vernon (born 1544) who resided at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, England. Dorothy Vernon died in 1584 and was interred in the Vernon Chapel at All Saints Church, Bakewell England. Her descendants, the Dukes of Rutland, continue to own Haddon Hall.