The Library of Congress has the only extant reel of Flaming Youth: a 10-minute fragment which shows people diving into a swimming pool.
First National executive and producer John McCormick married Colleen Moore on August 18, 1923. McCormick bought the rights to Samuel Hopkins Adams's flapper novel, "Flaming Youth," as a wedding gift to her.
In this film, Colleen Moore debuted her trademark flapper haircut: the Dutch-boy bob. Colleen's mother Agnes purportedly suggested the idea. However, actress Mary Thurman had already debuted the Dutch-boy bob haircut in 1920, and dancer Irene Castle had bobbed her own hair nearly a decade earlier.
"Flaming Youth" was based on the popular novel of the same name written by author Samuel Hopkins Adams (as Warner Fabian). Focusing on the sexual urges of young women in the Jazz Age, the novel had a frankness that was controversial for its time, and Adams used the pseudonym "Warner Fabian" so that his other works would not be tainted by scandal. As a result of this novel being made into a film, Colleen Moore became a major Hollywood star. "Flaming Youth" also ushered in the popularity of flapper-themed films in 1923.
In his essay "Echoes of the Jazz Age", author F. Scott Fitzgerald cites this movie as the only film that captured the sexual revolution of the Jazz Age. He lamented that its runaway success prompted "Hollywood hacks" to create a number of similar, but less daring, films and to run "the theme into its cinematographic grave".