One of the earliest extant American films of French director Maurice Tourneur, Trilby fails as drama only due to a problem in casting. Both Wilton Lackaye, who was born when Abe Lincoln was still president, and Clara Kimball Young were really too old for their parts and the latter, especially, does not strike a viewer as the wallflower type. That said, Maurice Tourneur's production bears his usual stamp of sumptuous and quite realistic sets, though contemporary reviewers were hard pressed to believe that Trilby was filmed in Fort Lee rather than Paris. A modern audience, also, may not be quite as easily taken in.