While still in the army, L'Herbier wrote two film scenarios for other directors, and then accepted an official commission to make a propaganda film about the image of France, which was funded by Léon Gaumont.
L'Herbier's first production with his own company was an adaptation of Resurrection (1923) from the Tolstoy novel, but filming met a series of setbacks and the project was abandoned when L'Herbier contracted typhoid and was critically ill for several weeks.