Early working titles for the film includedLucky StrikeandThe Northern Story.The film, inspired in part by the gruesome Donner Party story, was shot (over a period of 15 months from spring 1924-summer 1925) both on a Hollywood studio back lot and in Truckee, California/Nevada, and premiered in New York at the Strand Theatre in mid-August, 1925.Posters for the film illustrate the liberating, redemptive power of hope and the religious themes of freedom and resurrection, with the words:"Fear can hold you prisoner, Hope can set you free.As his passport is checked by a British MP, he asks about Lime.He tells the customs official he""s going to stay with a friend at 15 Stiftgasse.The zither music dips, signifying that something is awry concerning the absence of Harry:Lime, Harry Lime.The saga is the story of two childhood buddies from New York City slums on the Lower East Side in the 1920s: "Rocky" Sullivan (Frankie Burke as youth, James Cagney as adult), and Jerry Connolly (William Tracy as youth, Pat O""Brien as adult).