few weeks. Academics and biographers reviewing the play have also expressed mixed opinions. Theater scholar Gerald Bordman declared it "an unexceptional courtroom drama" made popular by the jury element, although he noted praise for the acting of Breese and Pidgeon. Historian James Baker described Rand's presentation of courtroom behavior as unrealistic, but said audiences forgive this because the play's dramatic moments are "so much fun". He said the play was "great entertainment" that is "held together by an enormously attractive woman and a gimmick", but "it is not philosophy" and fails to convey the themes Rand had in mind. Jennifer Burns expressed a similar view, stating that the play's attempts to portray individualism had "dubious results ... Rand intended Bjorn Faulkner to embody heroic individualism, but in the play he comes off as little more than an unscrupulous businessman with a taste for rough sex". Literature scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein described the play as "significant for dramatic ingenuity and thematic content". Rand biographer Anne Heller considered it "engaging, if stilted", while Ronald Merrill described it as "a skillfully constructed drama" undercut by "Rand's peculiar inability to write an effective mystery plot without leaving holes". Mystery critic Marvin Lachman noted the novelty of the use of a jury but called the play unrealistic with "stilted dialogue" and "stereotypical characters". Adaptations Movies The movie rights to Night of January 16th were initially purchased by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in October 1934 as a possible vehicle for Loretta Young. They hired Rand to write a screenplay, but the project was scrapped. After MGM's option expired, Woods considered making a movie version through a production company of his own, but in 1938 RKO Pictures bought the rights for $10,000, a fee split between Woods and Rand. RKO considered Claudette Colbert and Lucille Ball as possible stars, but they also gave up on the adaptation. The rights were resold to Paramount Pictures in July 1939 for $35,000. Paramount released a movie in 1941; Rand did not participate in the production. The film was directed by William Clemens, and Delmer Daves, Robert Pirosh, and Eve Greene were engaged to prepare a new screenplay. The new screenplay altered the plot significantly, focusing on Steve Van Ruyle (Robert Preston), a sailor who inherits a position on the board of a company headed by Bjorn Faulkner (Nils Asther). Unlike the play, in which Faulkner is already dead, he appears in the