God's Outlaw was billed in the trade magazines as the last of Metro Pictures' Francis X. Bushman-Beverly Bayne films (see the 21 June 1919 Motion Picture News), but the couple denied that claim, saying that the picture was "made two years ago and was never released by Metro," according to the 5 July 1919 Motion Picture News. It had been shot in 1917 and originally scheduled for release on 17 December 1917, according to the 1 December 1917 Moving Picture World.
       A review in the 11 July 1919 Variety spelled out why Bushman complained about the picture: "Metro is trying to put over this Bushman-Bayne feature on the strength of 'kidding' the original story....When completed [in 1917] it was shelved because [it was] not deemed good enough. Since that time, however, it has been resurrected and given a set of supposedly humorous titles and released. The result is that it is about as bunk a piece of hokum as has ever been slipped to exhibitors....All the heroics for which Bushman in his heyday was famed are unmercifully kidded in this picture, but at that the job is a rather sorry affair....The result is just a very poor melodrama for the rank and file of film fans." The review also pointed out that Bushman had "slipped into the discard of film popularity. Film men generally believe that his family affairs are in a great measure responsible." Many fans were outraged that, after making two dozen films with Bayne since 1915, Bushman divorced the mother of his five children and married her.
       In the film, as originally shot, "Andrew" was a young lawyer who was intensely religious, but rejected God and vowed never to enter a church again after his mother died and his sweetheart became engaged to another. He left town and was hired as a sheriff in another town. After the events related in the synopsis of this film, Andrew brought "Percy" to marry "Ruth" and went off to bear his grief alone. He was carried unconscious to a wayside shrine, where, after praying for God's assistance, he saw Ruth and believed that she was a vision. They were reunited after she convinced him that she was real. The 8 December 1917 Motion Picture News mentioned a "superb fight" in God's Outlaw in which Bushman's country sheriff's "trusty 'right' carries a punch as strong as his convictions." His opponent is "the 'bad man' of the village, a blacksmith with muscles 'strong as iron bands,' like those celebrated by Longfellow."
       Some scenes in this film were shot in Enfield Falls, NY, according to the 29 September 1917 Motion Picture News. Two actors mentioned in the 1 December 1917 Moving Picture World were Sue Balfour and Robert Anderson, but their appearance in the eventual cut of God's Outlaw is undetermined. A personal advertisement in the 19 December 1917 New York Clipper gave the name of the actor who played "Rufus Sanborn" as Samuel Kramer, while other sources cited Samuel Framer. Kramer claimed his character's name was "Sandow."
       The title God's Outlaw was originally applied to another 1917 Bushman-Bayne film, The Adopted Son (see entry for a more detailed explanation), which may have been shot at roughly the same time in upstate New York.
       The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included this film on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of February 2021.