"Academy Award Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on June 22, 1946 with Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien reprising their film roles.
Louis Wolheim was originally cast to play Walter Burns, but Adolphe Menjou got the part when Wolheim died suddenly.
The journalists are all based on actual reporters who were Chicago colleagues of authors Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, with most working alongside them at the courthouse. The real names were only slightly changed: Hildy Johnson was based on the real-life reporter Hildebrand Johnson, Walter Burns was based on the editor Walter Howey, and Mac McCue was based on reporter Buddy McHugh.
The last line of the play had to be partly obliterated by the sound of a typewriter being accidentally struck because the censors (even of that day) wouldn't allow the phrase "son-of-a-bitch" to be used in a film.
The play "The Front Page" opened at the Times Square Theater on August 14, 1929, and ran for 276 performances.