A full-page advertisement in the 5 May 1928 Motion Picture News announced that three Zane Grey stories, The Water Hole, Avalanche, and Sunset Pass, were slated to be Jack Holt motion pictures for Paramount. Sunset Pass was described as: Newest Zane Grey novel now enthralling magazine readers as a serial." However, Sunset Pass was not published in book form until 1931.
       An item in the 26 September 1928 Exhibitors Daily Reivew announced that Otto Brower would be directing Sunset Pass and that Jack Holt, Olga Baclanova, Doris Hill, and John Darrow were in the cast. However, Baclanova, Hill, and Darrow appeared in Avalanche, not Sunset Pass.
       According to a production directory in the 8 December 1928 Exhibitors Herald-Moving Picture World, work began on Sunset Pass on 6 November 1928 at Paramount Studios, 5451 Marathon, Hollywood, CA. The 1 December 1928 Motion Picture News reported, "Jack Holt and fifty other players and technicians have left the Paramount studios in Hollywood for location work in Tuba City, Arizona, on Sunset Pass. Tuba City is located on Navajo land in the Painted Desert. The 15 December 1928 Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World noted that filming "was completed last week."
       Sunset Pass was English actor John Loder's first Hollywood film.
       The 16 February 1929 Harrison's Reports inexplicably cited the film length as being between 68 and 93 minutes.
       Variety reported that Sunset Pass played for one day on a double bill at Loew's New York Theatre on Broadway, 9 February 1929. The publication called it: "Exceptionally well-turned-out western, so far above the average it will draw in some of the better second runs and a few at the firsts."
       In 1933, Paramount produced another adaptation of the story under the same title. That film was directed by Henry Hathaway and starred Randolph Scott and Tom Keene. In 1946, RKO produced another adaptation under that title, directed by William Berke and starring James Warren and Nan Leslie (see entries).
       The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included this film on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of February 2021.