 The script was based on the unproduced play "Everybody Comes to  Ricks". Samuel Marx (qv) of MGM wanted to offer authors  (Murray Burnett (I) (qv) and Joan Alison (qv)) $5,000 for it,  but MGM boss Louis B. Mayer (qv) refused; Irene Lee of the Warner  Brothers story department praised it to Jack L. Warner (qv), who  agreed to buy it for $20,000.