The 6 November 1915 Moving Picture World announced that World Film Corp. would produce an adaptation of Henry Russell Miller's novel, The Ambition of Mark Truitt, with Robert Warrick. Two months later, the 1 January 1916 Motion Picture News reported that for the previous six weeks, director Oscar Eagle had been filming The Ambition of Mark Truitt in Pittsburgh, PA, and Savannah, GA, and was now returning to the World Film studios in Fort Lee, NJ. "Only the interiors to be made in the studio remain undone, but these are of such massive construction as to require fully half of the floor space of the Fort Lee plant." The company had first filmed in Pittsburgh, "where the scenes in which the hero fights his way against all obstacles from his humble employment in the steel mills to a position of dominance of power are enacted. The company was permitted to use one of the big plants of the United States Steel Corporation, where work on munitions for the Allies was being carried on night and day. Without interrupting the regular routine of the mill, Director Eagle was able to take many hundred feet of mill scenes in which Warwick participated along with thousands of regular mill employees. The company has been for the past month at Savannah, Ga. The picture includes scenes along the coast and the Savannah River, as well as locations embodying many of the quaint, old fashioned Southern mansions for which Savannah is famous."
       The 8 January 1916 Motion Picture News noted that in the World Film offices, the "title for this film has been a much discussed matter..., but a final decision has been reached on The Quest Eternal. The 1 January 1916 Moving Picture World reported that Eagle and his "company of twenty-five people" had returned to Fort Lee to complete the film, which promised: "Scenes in the steel mills, a realistic character study of Andrew Carnegie in the role of a steel king, big scenes on the Stock Exchange, mighty battles of men of millions, and tender love interest," all making The Quest Eternal "an absorbing and unusually powerful picture drama." Later in the month, the 22 January 1916 Motography noted that the final scenes of what was now being called The Fruits of Desire were completed that week.
       In the 29 January 1916 Motion Picture News, reviewer Peter Milne praised the film's "educational series of scenes photographed in a large steel mill. They are interspersed very generousy among the scenes depicting dramatic action and are some of the most interesting bits [this] writer has seen." He added that director Oscar Eagle's "exteriors showing the huge factory works and the dirty little street, Rose Alley, are most realistic."
       This film was remade in 1919 as Fruits of Passion (see entry) by McClure Productions, Inc.
       The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included this film on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of February 2021.