 Frank Capra (qv) first became aware of the play when he caught a  performance of it when he was in New York in 1937 for the premiere  of _Lost Horizon (1937)_ (qv). He tried to persuade Columbia boss  Harry Cohn (I) (qv) to buy the rights but Cohn refused, partly  because he baulked at the prospect of shelling out what he  considered to be the exorbitant sum of $200,000 for the rights, but  mainly because he was still smarting from the lost battles hed had  with Capra over the final edit of _Lost Horizon (1937)_ (qv). Capra  too was out of sorts with Cohn as he objected strongly to the  Columbia boss trying to market the Jean Arthur (I) (qv) film  _If You Could Only Cook (1935)_ (qv) in Britain as one of his own. A  court case ensued, only being resolved in November 1937, with the  proviso that Columbia buy the rights to the play and assign the  project to Capra.