Based on the play "Brother Rat" which opened on Broadway in New York City at the Biltmore Theatre (Samual J. Friedman Theatre since 2008), 261 W. 47th St. on 16 December 1936 and ran for 577 performances. Warner Bros. had previously made this play into a feature film: Os Cadetes do Barulho (1938).
The film was a box-office failure. Eddie Bracken later said that, "the main reason why audiences rejected About Face, I think, is that most of us were too damn old for the roles."