This film was based on the short story “The Painted Scene” by Henry Kitchell Webster, which first appeared in Collier’s National Weekly on 4 April 1914, and was adapted for the screen by Agnes C. Johnson. Referring to the picture as Spring of the Year, the 1 December 1917 Motion Picture News announced that “Madame Blaché” had recently gone to Palm Beach, FL, with star Bessie Love and a “large company” for filming. The movie marked Love’s first film for Pathé Exchange, Inc. One week later, the 8 December 1917 Motion Picture News noted that Agnes C. Johnson had authored “some of the biggest comedy-drama hits of the past year” and that Spring of the Year was anticipated to be Love’s best vehicle to date. At that time, the company had moved to a Pathé studio in New York City and by 22 December 1917, production was nearly completed according to a Motion Picture News brief published that day.
       The film was reviewed under the title The Great Adventure in the 22 February 1918 Variety, but as Spring of the Year in the April 1918 Photoplay.
       As noted in Alison McMahan’s 2003 biography, Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema, which refers to the film as Her Great Adventure, a 28mm version of the film was discovered in the UK but fragments were missing. “Spring of the Year” is a reference to a musical that takes place in the story. Despite poor critical reception, The Great Adventure was a commercial success. Blaché collaborated with her husband, Herbert Blaché, on several films in 1919 and 1920, but The Great Adventure marked her second to last American feature before her final production, Tarnished Reputations (1920, see entry).