According to official sources, 20 million tickets for this film were sold (in the UK) in the first 6 weeks. That would equal about half the population of Britain at the time (43 million). It has been said that this record was not broken until the release of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) more than 60 years later.
Among the most familiar moving images of World War One is that of an anxious British soldier in a trench, coming toward the camera, with a fallen comrade on his back, comes from this film and was used in print advertising for it, in line art form.