An interesting element to the live play was that the jury was selected from the audience at each performance, and different endings were used according to how the jury voted at the end. (In Rand's reckoning, the heroine on trial technically wasn't guilty of the charge against her, but the evidence presented was evenly balanced and the verdict would be a reflection of the jury's own collective conscience.)
Author Ayn Rand hated the title "Night of January 16th"; she preferred the play's original title, "Woman on Trial". She also disowned the amateur and summer stock adaptations of the play.
The storyline is based loosely on the career (and death) of Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish "Match King" who made and lost a fortune in business.
One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since. Its earliest documented telecast took place in Omaha Thursday 26 March 1959 on KETV (Channel 7); legal complications got in the way of further telecasts for a while, but airways were finally cleared and it was initially broadcast in Denver 18 July 1959 on KBTV (Channel 9), in Seattle 27 August 1959 on KIRO (Channel 7), in Milwaukee 27 October 1959 on WITI (Channel 6), in Chicago 16 January 1960 on WBBM (Channel 2), in Philadelphia 21 February 1960 on WCAU (Channel 10), in Phoenix 23 March 1960 on KVAR (Channel 12), and in Detroit 30 March 1960 on WJBK (Channel 2).