An earlier film version of the play had been contemplated in the mid 194os at 20th Century Fox, with Elia Kazan directing and Ernst Lubitsch playing Jacobowsky.
In the UK, given a Royal Premiere attended by HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh at the Odeon Leicester Square on Monday October 27th 1958.
The play "Jacobowsky und der Oberst" by Franz Werfel opened in Basel, Switzerland in the early 1940s. The American version "Jacobowsky and the Colonel" opened at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York on 14 March 1944 and closed in 10 March 1945 after 417 performances. The opening night cast included Annabella, Louis Calhern as the Colonel, Oskar Karlweis as S.L. Jacobowsky, Harold Vermilyea as a Gestapo Official and J. Edward Bromberg as Szabuniewicz.
The Broadway musical, The Grand Tour, was based on this film. Joel Grey played the Danny Kaye role of S. L. Jacobowsky and 'Ron Holgate' played Colonel Tadeusz Boleslav Stjerbinsky. Opening at the Palace Theatre in NYC, it ran only 61 performances in 1979. That same year on Broadway, Sweeney Todd, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and They're Playing Our Song also premiered. It is memorable for its lyrics by 'Jerry Herman'. It was up for a Tony Award for best original score, best leading actor in a musical and best featured actor in a musical, winning nothing against such steep competition.