The 16 February 1929 Motion Picture News, in an item date-lined 13 February, reported that Zeppelin was completed, and that John Stahl was now writing a sequel, The Lost Zeppelin, "which will go into production early in the spring." However, Zeppelin was never released, and parts of it may have been used in The Lost Zeppelin, which itself was begun as a silent film and then reshot with synchronized sound, with some actors removed and others added. These stops and starts ultimately became part of the film's publicity: "More than one year in the making."
       According to a studio production chart in the 2 February 1929 Exhibitors Herald-World, production on The Lost Zeppelin began on 8 January 1929 at the Tiffany-Stahl Studios at 4516 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, CA. The March 1929 International Photographer listed M. Hall and Cecil Wright as cameraman Jackson Rose's assistants, adding that the film was "the most expensive ever attempted by Tiffany-Stahl. A real Zeppelin was used in the ice field scenes." The item listed the director as Reginald Barker, and Conrad Tearle's costars were Claire Windsor and Larry Kent. Reginald Barker was also listed as director in an advertisement as late as the 28 August 1929 Film Daily. However, the 25 July 1929 Los Angeles Evening Post-Record and 27 July 1929 Hollywood Filmograph reported that Tiffany-Stahl signed Edward Sloman to direct "the dialogue version of The Lost Zeppelin, featuring Claire Windsor and Conway Teale....Production on The Lost Zeppelin will start about July 25....A number of the show sequences will be photographed on location in the Canadian Rockies. Larry Kent will play opposite Miss Windsor in the production." Ultimately, neither Kent nor Windsor appeared in the released film.
       Later, according to the 12 August 1929 Film Daily, work on the film was still "proceeding," but now the director of record was Sloman, whose name replaced Barker's in a full-page ad in the 19 September 1929 Film Daily. The 8 August 1929 Film Daily announced that Virginia Valli and Ricardo Cortez had been added to the cast. The 3 August 1929 Motion Picture News described the film as "a melodrama of the South Pole....Directed by Reginald Barker, with dialogue direction by Edward Sloman." A new production chart in the 31 August 1929 Exhibitors Herald-World cited a new starting date sometime in August.
       Radios were important to the story, so the producers called Walter F. Brown, a Hollywood dealer in Bosch radios who often built special cabinets for films. The Los Angeles Evening Express reported that in The Last Zeppelin, "a Bosch radio furnishes the background for many dramatic scenes [in the home of Commander and Mrs. Hall]....Having nothing in stock for such a setting, he built a massive, hard-carved cabinet that looks as if it had been taken from a medieval castle."
       Cameraman Jackson Rose ran a personal ad in the October 1929 International Photographer that he had just completed The Lost Zeppelin, directed by both Reginald Barker and Edward Sloman.
       The Park Theatre in Boston arranged to premiere The Lost Zeppelin on the East Coast, on 28 December, according to the 17 December 1929 Film Daily. According to the film's ad in the 1930 Film Daily Year Book, "All house records broken in World Premiere in Boston."
       A full-page advertisement in the Hollywood Daily Screen World announced that the "first Los Angeles premiere of the New Year" for The Lost Zeppelin would take place at the Million Dollar Theatre (at Third and Broadway) at one minute after midnight on New Year's Day, 1930.
       The Lost Zeppelin, which did well at the box office, benefitted from timeliness. U.S. Navy Commander Richard E. Byrd had been making a much-publicized series of South Pole expeditions in 1928 and 1929. As the March 1930 Motion Picture put it, the film "apparently is an attempt to capitalize upon the current interest created by the flights of Commander Byrd and Dr. Hugo Eckener." The magazine also complimented "the Zep itself, zooming over the frozen arctic wastes of Hollywood. Actual shots of the Graf Zeppelin have been cleverly mixed with miniatures--but real or fake, the final effect is swell." The 9 February 1930 Film Daily mentioned that "ice mountains, raging snow storms, and a disabled Zeppelin, are the highlights of this drama....but the spectacular scenic effects are too obviously artificial."
       Although the reported 35mm footage for the film times out to 76 minutes, the running time was reported as being 73 minutes. The version in circulation as of 2011 runs 72 minutes.
       According to Library of Congress records, the copyright claimant for the film was Tiffany Productions, Inc., but the copyright notice on the film's main title reads "Copyright MCMXXIX by Tiffany-Stahl Productions, Inc."
       The plot of the 1931 Columbia Pictures film Dirigible (see entry) bears a strong resemblance to the plot line of this film.
       The sound-synchronized version of The Lost Zeppelin is extant , but the National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included the silent version on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of February 2021.