[3][b] The screenplay or "scenario" for Trying to Get Arrested was inspired by and adapted from the short story "The Cop and the Anthem" written by American author William Sydney Porter, who is more commonly known by his pen name "O. Henry".

The trade journal The Moving Picture World is one that describes the storyline in its April 3 issue: TRYING TO GET ARRESTED.–Strange as it may seem the poor tramp, who is the hero of this Biograph comedy, finds it hard indeed to get pinched.

[5]Film reviewer H. A. Downey in The Nickelodeon, another widely read trade journal in 1909, provides in its May edition an even more concise summary of Griffith's comedy than the one found in The Moving Picture World.

Another summary of this short's plot, one that provides the most straightforward descriptions of scenes in the film, is in a more current reference, in the extensive 1985 publication Early Motion Pictures: The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress.

Palisades Park, which is located across the Hudson River from Manhattan, is about 13 miles north from where Biograph's headquarters and main studio were in 1909, situated inside a sprawling brownstone mansion at 11 East 14th Street in New York City.

"[10] That news item also informs filmgoers that for the price of ten cents they can purchase a poster from Biograph on which the names and respective portraits of 26 of the company's principal actors were featured.

In fact, Cumpson died in March 1913, just the month before Biograph began to identify and actively promote its stars and publicly acknowledge their supporting cast members.

[11] Florence Lawrence, who performed as the nanny in this film, was known in 1909 to theater audiences only as the "Biograph Girl", although within a few years after this comedy's initial distribution, she would be widely publicized as one of the top screen actors in the United States.

[12] Given the brevity of this comedy, with a film length of just 344 feet and an original runtime of less than six minutes, Trying to Get Arrested was released and distributed by Biograph on a split-reel with the 618-foot drama The Road to the Heart.

Shortly after the film's release in April 1909, the Royal Theater in Bisbee, Arizona reported in the local newspaper an enthusiastic response to the motion picture by its audiences.

The Electric Theatre in Conway, Arkansas lists the film by that title in the promotion of its evening program on the front page of the May 20, 1909 issue of The Log Cabin Democrat.

[7] Submitted by Biograph to the United States government shortly before the film's release, the roll is part of the original documentation required by federal authorities for motion-picture companies to obtain copyright protection for their productions.