Universal reported that it bought the rights to eight best-sellers, including Jacques Futrelle's Elusive Isabel, "to be used as the basis for Universal Broadway Features."
       As pointed out in the 5 February 1916 Motion Picture News, Elusive Isabel marked the "reappearance as a Universal star" for Florence Lawrence, generally acknowledged to be the first movie industry-created celebrity whose name was used to sell her pictures. She began her film career in 1907. Universal at this point planned the film to be part of its Red Feather line, which had replaced its Broadway Features. The item stated that director Stuart Paton had blown up a building and taken his company of actors to Washington, D.C., "where Miss Lawrence and her supporting cast spent a week." While they were still at Universal's Fort Lee, NJ, studios, one series of interior scenes was filmed over a twenty-four-hour period, from one morning to the next," at which point the set was dismantled.
       The 5 February 1916 Moving Picture World and April 1916 Picture-Play Magazine listed Curtis Benton and Paul Crampton among the cast, but their presence in the film is undetermined.
       According to the 6 May 1916 Moving Picture World, Elusive Isabel was filmed in eight reels, but edited down to five, "retaining in more condensed scope the many and various sensations that were embodied in the original length. In producing these exciting episodes many novel methods have been employed, and a play of uncommon originality is developed." The 20 May 1916 Moving Picture World coverage of the story also described it as being in "five parts," and Motography listed it as being 5,000 feet. However, Motion Picture News reviewer Peter Milne, in the 20 May 1916 edition, twice called the film a six-reeler. So did New York Clipper, which added, "The picture needs editing badly, and, on the whole, is a rather mediocre production." Wid's found the story "messy, jumpy," and commented, "It is certainly not worth six reels....I would say that Miss Lawrence's return to the films will probably fail to create a terrible commotion."
       Declaring that Universal hadn't provided her with the proper photoplay, Miss Lawrence resigned after finishing Elusive Isabel, according to the 22 April 1916 Moving Picture World. "Florry Lorry is said to have developed a temperamental streak, but as she had no written or verbal contract with the Universal, President [Carl] Laemmle had no means of making her stay at the big new Fort Lee studios." (She did return to the company the following year.)
       The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included this film on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of February 2021.