The 7 Feb 1920 Camera announced “Empire Builders,” originally published in the 20 May 1916 Saturday Evening Post, as the next Mary Roberts Rinehart story to be adapted for the screen. Empire Builders also served as the film’s working title. Two months later, the 5 Apr 1920 Camera reported that director E. Mason Hopper was completing work on the project. On 13 Apr 1920, however, Wid’s Daily stated that production had just begun the previous week at Goldwyn Studios in Culver City, CA. The 20 Apr 1920 Camera included Ralph Bushman, son of actor Francis X. Bushman, among the cast. He later became known as Francis X. Bushman, Jr.
       Articles in the 22 May 1920 and 29 May 1920 issues Motion Picture News revealed that a South Pacific island village was constructed at the “Inceville ranch” north of Santa Monica, CA. The 5 Jun 1920 edition estimated that 500 African American background actors were engaged to portray the “South Sea cannibals” who boil star Cullen Landis alive. Studio publicity chief J. Stewart Woodhouse invited several journalists to witness the spectacle. The 12 Jun 1920 Moving Picture World described the location as a stretch of beach with a lagoon, approximately “three miles beyond the canyon that turns into Inceville.” The village was set in a grove of palm and banana trees with several canoes and a large “war boat” nearby, and grass huts decorated with the supposed leg bones and skulls of the cannibals’ victims. The background actors, now estimated at 300, were hired from the Central Avenue district of Los Angeles, CA.
       Mary Roberts Rinehart traveled to Los Angeles to edit and subtitle the film, as reported in the 12 Jun 1920 Moving Picture World. The 21 Jun 1920 Wid’s Daily announced This Is the Life as the new title.
       According to the 4 Sep 1920 Motion Picture News, the film opened 29 Aug 1920 as It’s a Great Life at New York City’s Capitol Theatre. A Los Angeles opening followed during the week of 4 Sep 1920 at the California Theatre, according the 11 Sep 1920 Moving Picture World. Although reviews were generally positive, the 11 Sep 1920 Motion Picture News suggested that the film’s appeal might be limited to the upper classes, who could identify with students at a college preparatory school. An item in the 2 Oct 1920 issue declared the picture “a hit” in New York City, Los Angeles, and Denver, CO, where it opened one month earlier.