The death of the "Joe Rico" character in a fall from a building parallels the real-life death (in 1941) of Abe Reles (aka "Kid Twist"), an underworld killer whose arrest the previous year led authorities first to discover the existence of the organization popularly dubbed "Murder Inc." in the newspapers. Reles, in order to avoid execution in the electric chair, agreed to testify against the organization after submitting to a police interrogation about it, which famously took a full two weeks to complete, so exhaustive were his recollections. However, he never appeared on the stand, dying --after falling or being pushed out of a window in the hotel where he was staying---the day before he was due to appear. The film depicts Rico's death as a tragic accident, but it is more than likely that Reles' death was murder--one which, furthermore, almost certainly had the collusion of corrupt police officers, although this was never proved.
The film was released in Great Britain under the title "Murder, Inc.", although it has reverted to its proper title on British television. Although the plot is clearly suggested by the true-life story of the notorious underworld organization dedicated to murdering people for profit, with the killers having no overt connection to the victims, popularly called "Murder Incorporated" in the press, this phrase is never actually used in the film itself.
According to the "New York Times"' 2/26/2014 article on films influenced by the Kefauver hearings, Sen. Estes Kefauver appeared in a prologue for this film.
On 10/25/1957--2,415 days after the 3/16/51 premiere of this film--real-life Murder Inc. boss Albert Anastasia was murdered in a barber shop similar to the one in the scene in the movie, where Rico murders Tony Vetto.
It is the second time that Bob Steele gets killed by Humphrey Bogart after "The Big Sleep".