Buster Keaton doubled for Ford West, the actor playing Gillette, in the scene where the motorcycle he is driving (with Keaton on the handlebars) hits a deep pothole and bucks him off flat on his behind.

Many filmographies credit Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle as co-director of this film. Whether this is true or not is unclear. Buster Keaton did originally hope to have Arbuckle work as his co-director, but claims Arbuckle was still too depressed over the scandal that had nearly ended his career two years earlier and had become difficult to work with. Then Keaton went ahead as the sole director of the film. Doris Deane, Arbuckle's second wife, later claimed Arbuckle directed the entire film. Historians disagree as to how much Arbuckle may have directed - which varies from none to as much as half.

Sherlock Jr.'s assistant, Gillette, is named after William Gillette, the first actor to play Sherlock Holmes on stage.

Included among the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die', edited by Steven Jay Schneider.

For the scene where Sherlock Jr., escaping some gangsters, leaps headfirst through the body of his assistant, Gillette (who is disguised as an old lady selling neckties), and disappears, Buster Keaton used an old magician's trick. Prior to the trick, Gillette is seen standing with his back against a wooden fence. A section of the fence was sawed out and placed on hinges, so that it opened up and back like a garage door. Ford West (the actor playing Gillette) was then strapped to the underside of the cutaway section, so that when it was opened, West's body was hanging parallel to the ground, but his head and arms stuck out through the upper part of the opening in the fence. The dress and open suitcase were then hung from West's shoulders, so that they hung down in front of the fence, concealing the opening. Both the dress and the suitcase had holes cut in them. With the cameras rolling, Keaton leaped headfirst straight through the hole in the suitcase, the hole in the dress, and the opening in the fence. (He later recalled that he "landed face-first in the dirt" on the other side.) The cutaway fence section was then swung down to close the opening, so that West's body landed perfectly inside the dress. Attendants on the other side of the fence cut the straps holding West's torso and feet to the cutaway