Director John Cromwell commented on the film and actor George Bancroft in an interview with historian Kinglesy Canham (circa 1975):
”...Rich Man’s Folly was a very good opportunity [to make something more than a routine picture]; it was a modern dress version of Dickens’Dombey and Son, and it should have been absolutely splendid for Bancroft except that it required in the actor a consciousness of the material—of which he had none! To him it was always just another part to play in the same old manner. He had no realization of the opportunities that were there, so they were simply missed.”[4]
Preservation status
Although the film does still exist, Rich Man's Folly has not been seen publicly in decades. It has never been released onto VHS or DVD, and no re-showings or television broadcasts are known to have taken place. A surviving copy currently exists in the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Paramount created a promotional film in 1931 called The House That Shadows Built, with excerpts of Rich Man's Folly featured.
