A trade showing of this film was given on Sept. 10, 1917. The film contained actual footage of "the appearance of Pershing in France," in addition to realistic training and battle scenes, and night scenes were illuminated by actual star bombs and trench rockets. The Canadian Government cooperated with the production, and the Canadian Ordnance Department supplied star bombs, trench rockets, and fixed lights for the night scenes. According to pre-release articles, the film, which was shot in Philadelphia as well as Canada, employed thousands of Canadian troops for maneuver sequences. Varcalls Barbara Castleton's character Dollie Milburn. The film was originally planned as a state rights release, but, in Oct. 1917, the Goldwyn Distribution Corp. announced plans to distribute the film worldwide. The working title of the film was The Freedom of the World.
Romaine Fielding (born William Grant Blandin; May 22, 1867 – December 15, 1927) was an American actor, screenwriter, and silent film director known for his dramatic westerns. He was also known as Royal A. Blandin. Fielding worked for the Solax Film Company of New York before joining Philadelphia-based Lubin Studios in November 1911 at the age of 44. Despite his age, he could easily portray much younger characters. In June 1912 Siegmund Lubin placed Fielding in charge of the Lubin Southwest Company as director, despite the fact that until then he had only acted. It was the start of a rapid rise to fame. Fielding would write and direct films as well as star in them. He broke with convention, challenging stereotypical casting of Indians and Mexicans as villains. His films often ended unexpectedly on a downbeat note. His work was praised in the trade press for its visual beauty combined with realism.
Fielding directed films in the old streets of Tucson in 1912, then moved north to Prescott to film stories based on old west mining and Indian life. He used many local people as extras. Towards the end of 1912, he moved his company down to Nogales. In March 1913, he crossed into Mexico with his company, and was able to film the Battle of Nogales as it happened. He later directed and filmed additional battle scenes, then spliced the real and artificial footage to give the sense of the battle having been filmed from both sides. From there he took his company to Silver City, New Mexico, where he rented two houses and built an outdoor stage for shooting interior scenes. He made use of abandoned structures to film spectacular fires or explosions, which formed the highlights of his fresh and realistic films, typically dark human tragedies. Fielding rented the entire Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, New Mexico from 1913 to 1915, and renamed it the Hotel Romaine. It is still possible to see traces of that name on the brick facade. The first film that Fielding made in Las Vegas was The Rattlesnake, a story about two rivals in love. Four more shorts were made within the next month. His five-reel thriller, The Golden God, employed about 5,000 local extras and featured a cavalry and artillery charge through the streets of the old town. The print for the film was lost in a fire, and there are no surviving copies. At one time he filmed a train smash at great expense and Lubin used the costly footage in five different films.
Fielding made a number of Mexican-themed western-style films and adventure films on location in California, Arizona, and New Mexico, but little of his work has survived. In July 1913 Motion Picture Story magazine announced that Fielding had come top of their readers poll with 1,311,018 votes. In 1915, Fielding built a moveable power plant to enable the Lubin company to make films at night. The four-ton unit included a generator, a 2,000-foot cable, a 13-inch searchlight, and other lights.[