 Fleming's book credits The Ways of Fate as the debut of Lon Chaney, but this has been disputed. The documentary Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces states that his film debut occurred after his wife's suicide attempt in April 1913 and "his earliest films were made at the first studio to open in Hollywood, Nestor." Jon C. Mirsalis notes in his website that the film "almost certainly [did not feature] Chaney, although it was directed by Allan Dwan. Wouldn 't it be interesting if Chaney worked at a studio other than Universal in 1913!" \ Michael Blake, a Lon Chaney historian and author of several books on Lon Chaney's life and work, notes that the possibility exists that Chaney performed in a role during a period of unemployment in 1912. Blake notes that this would have occurred before Lon Chaney rejoined Clarence Kolb and Max Dill's company in San Francisco, California in September 1912. Furthermore, the Encyclopedia of Early Cinema states that the American Film Manufacturing Company had moved to its Santa Barbara, California location in the summer of 1912 and that Dwan, who would later work with Chaney, left the company after a dispute with J. Warren Kerrigan in 1913. Chaney's appearance in the film is not cited by any Chaney historians. The film's survival status is unknown, but presumed lost.
