The play does not directly portray the events leading to Faulkner's death; instead the jury must rely on character testimony to decide whether Andre is guilty.

The play was first produced in 1934 in Los Angeles under the title Woman on Trial; it received mostly positive reviews and enjoyed moderate commercial success.

Their disputes climaxed in an arbitration hearing when Rand discovered Woods had diverted a portion of her royalties to pay for a script doctor.

The incident inspired Rand to make the victim a businessman of great ambition and dubious character, who had given several people motives for his murder.

[3] Rand had never written a stage play, but had worked in Hollywood as a junior screenwriter for Cecil B. DeMille, and later in RKO Studios' wardrobe department.

[4] In September 1932, Rand sold an original screenplay, Red Pawn, to Universal Studios and quit RKO to finish her first novel, We the Living.

With the last of her money from Red Pawn exhausted, Rand got an offer for her new play from Al Woods, who had produced The Trial of Mary Dugan for Broadway.

[19] When work resumed, Rand's relationship with Woods quickly soured as he demanded changes she later derided as "a junk heap of worn, irrelevant melodramatic devices".

Woods was not interested in what he called Rand's "highfalutin speeches",[20] preferring the dramatic conflict to focus on concrete elements, such as whether the defendant had a gun.

"[20] In two hearings, the panel ruled that Weitzenkorn should receive his agreed-upon one percent,[21] but that Woods could not deduct the payment from Rand's royalties because she had not been notified in advance.

[13][41] The plot of Night of January 16th centers on the trial of secretary Karen Andre for the murder of her employer, business executive Bjorn Faulkner, who defrauded his company of millions of dollars to invest in the gold trade.

Within the three acts, the prosecutor Mr. Flint and Andre's defense attorney Mr. Stevens call witnesses whose testimonies build conflicting stories.

Flint then calls a series of witnesses, starting with the medical examiner, who testifies that Faulkner's body was so damaged by the fall that it was impossible to determine whether he was killed by the impact or was already dead.

The second act continues the prosecution's case, with Flint calling John Graham Whitfield—Faulkner's father-in-law and president of Whitfield National Bank.

Regan, who was also in love with Andre, provided the stolen body of his already-dead gang associate, "Lefty" O'Toole, to throw from the building.

In the play's Broadway and amateur versions, the next witness is Roberta Van Rensselaer, an exotic dancer and wife of O'Toole, who believes Regan killed her husband.

[52] The jury for the Broadway opening included attorney Edward J. Reilly—who was known from the Lindbergh kidnapping trial earlier that year—and boxing champion Jack Dempsey.

One such rule was the payment of jurors three dollars per day for their participation, which meant the selected audience members profited by at least 25 cents after subtracting the ticket price.

[70] Rand would later expound an explicit philosophy, which she called "Objectivism", particularly in her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged and in non-fiction essays, but Night of January 16th predates these more philosophical works.

Literature professor Shoshana Milgram saw elements of Nietzsche's morality in the descriptions of Bjorn Faulkner, who "never thought of things as right or wrong".

[15][73] Although Rand later described the production as "badly handicapped by lack of funds" and "competent, but somewhat unexciting", it performed reasonably well at the box office during its short run.

[56] A review from Theatre Arts Monthly was also dismissive, calling the play a "fashionable game" that would be "fun in a parlor" but seemed "pretty foolish" on stage.

[83][84] A reviewer for The Village Voice complimented the story's melodramatic plot twists but said it was "preposterously badly written" and described the production as "conventional and obvious".

Theater scholar Gerald Bordman declared it "an unexceptional courtroom drama" made popular by the jury element, although he noted praise for the acting of Breese and Pidgeon.

[14] Historian James Baker described Rand's presentation of courtroom behavior as unrealistic, but said audiences forgive this because the play's dramatic moments are "so much fun".

[87] He said the play was "great entertainment" that is "held together by an enormously attractive woman and a gimmick", but "it is not philosophy" and fails to convey the themes Rand had in mind.

[44] Mystery critic Marvin Lachman noted the novelty of the use of a jury but called the play unrealistic with "stilted dialogue" and "stereotypical characters".

The film was directed by William Clemens, and Delmer Daves, Robert Pirosh, and Eve Greene were engaged to prepare a new screenplay.

[16][96] The new screenplay altered the plot significantly, focusing on Steve Van Ruyle (Robert Preston), a sailor who inherits a position on the board of a company headed by Bjorn Faulkner (Nils Asther).

Suspicion falls on Faulkner's secretary Kit Lane (Ellen Drew); Van Ruyle decides to investigate the alleged crime.