Producer-director husband-and-wife team Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber, known for exploring social issues in their films, were given separate production companies by Universal Manufacturing Company, according to the 2 Sep 1916 Motion Picture News. Mr. Smalley’s first project at the Universal City, CA, studio was an adaptation of The Girl That’s Down, a story by noted social reformer Brand Whitlock, currently the American minister to Belgium, as noted in the 23 Sep 1916 Motion Picture News. Another item in that same issue reported that the “sex problem play,” now titled The Double Standard, would feature actresses Hazel Page and Irene Aldwyn as “two girls of the street.” The 7 October 1916 Moving Picture World noted that Mary MacLaren would play the lead.
       The 30 Sep 1916 Motion Picture News reported that The Girl That’s Down was completed.
       The 11 Aug 1917 Moving Picture Weekly called The Double Standard “a thoughtful study of social life in the larger cities,” and praised the “light touch” the production gave to the “grimly humorous” conclusion instead of the usual “theatricalism.” The 1 Aug 1917 New York Clipper praised the atmosphere and photography, but declared the picture “propaganda.” The 25 Aug 1917 Exhibitors Herald noted that the Chicago (IL) Board of Censors permitted only adults to attend The Double Standard.
       An item in the 8 Sep 1917 Moving Picture World reported that Samuel A. McKee, the owner of the popular McKee's Cafe at 518-520 South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles, CA, filed a $100,000 lawsuit against Universal Film Mfg. Co. and the Superba Theater Company in the Superior Court of California. McKee alleged that his cafe appeared four different times in Universal's The Double Standard, and that it was used in the context of the film to represent a den of vice and ill-repute. McKee also claimed that because of the film, his establishment had been "held up to ridicule, contempt and hatred." Exterior photography of McKee's Cafe "followed immediately" after an inter-title card described big city cafes as pitfalls for "young and inexperienced girls." The presiding judge issued a temporary injunction restraining theaters from showing the cafe in their copies of The Double Standard, and the Superba Theater owner stated that he had already excised the offending shots.
       According to the synopsis in the copyright descriptions, Frank Elliott played "Bishop Ferguson" instead of “Charlie Ferguson.” This was probably an erroneous listing.
       The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included this film on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of January 2021.