Based on Leo Tolstoy's The Living Corpse, Redemption was originally scheduled as John Gilbert's first talkie, but was held from release until distribution of his second, One Glorious Night. The official reason, as handed down by the MGM publicity hacks, was that Gilbert's efforts to tackle a role created on stage by John Barrymore had come acropper, so it was decided to rush him into a more typical Grausarkian romance. Others claim that MGM wanted to destroy Gilbert's career (he'd made the mistake of offending studio prexy Louis B. Mayer), so they deliberately released One Glorious Night, which contained one of the actor's worst performances, first. Even though Gilbert is rather persuasive in Redemption, he is defeated by the hackneyed script, in which the Enoch Arden-style hero, long-presumed dead, commits suicide rather than ruin the happiness of his newly remarried wife (Eleanor Boardman). Nor did it help matters any that certain scenes were extensively reshot, resulting in some deplorable continuity gaps. Contrary to the "official" MGM story, most reviewers of Redemption praised John Gilbert but condemned the film, rather than the other way around. No matter: Gilbert was dead in the water so far as the studio was concerned, and the only reason he was kept around until 1932 was that he refused to leave until his contract expired. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide