 In 1922, theatrical agent Walter Jordan encouraged Elmer Rice to dramatize an unpublished novel by Hayden Talbot. At the time, Rice was best known for his 1914 Broadway play On Trial, which featured the first use of flashback, a narrative technique he adapted from film, in a Broadway production. Rice's adaptation of Talbot's work, It Is the Law, again featured a story told in flashback. It ran for 125 performances at the Ritz Theatre, and was a modest success.
