Creator Backlash: The author of the original play, Maurine Dallas Watkins, was a devout Christian from a small town. She was so perturbed by the trials that led to the creation the play that she quit her job as a reporter covering murder trials to become a playwright, beginning with Chicago.
She would later refuse to sell the play to Bob Fosse, whose wife had asked him to turn it into a musical. Some speculate that this is due to her reluctance to revisit it, likely because she feels guilty for getting the women acquitted due to her reporting. Fosse and his partners did not get the rights until she died, when her estate sold them to Fosse.
The woman Velma was based on attended the original premiere of the play.
The woman Roxie was based on did not attend the original play, instead dying two years after the release of the play from pneumonia. However, she did indeed fake a pregnancy during the trial and divorced her husband shortly after the trial ended.
Mary Sunshine is based on the "sob sisters" originated by the Hearst Newspaper company to write sympathetic stories for the accused women. This angle on the murder trials helped sell papers, leading other papers to take up the strategy.
There was indeed a woman, Sabella Nitti, convicted to death row partially due to her inability to speak English. In reality, she was Italian, not Hungarian. She was later proven innocent thanks to a much more competent defence lawyer taking up her appeal all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court and getting the charges dropped.
The Broadway musical:
Colbert Bump: Of sorts. The 1996 revival was helped by the real-life O.J. Simpson trial, which highlighted celebrity, murder, and getting away with it. One program even described the show as "Outrageous in the 20s, scandalous in the 70s, and now just reads like a documentary."
Dueling Works: Probably not intended by the creators of the respective shows (despite the bitter rivalry between their respective choreographers, Bob Fosse and Michael Bennett), but Ben Brantley (chief theater critic for the New York Times) has argued that Chicago and A Chorus Line were this: both are musicals that opened in 1975, and center on aspiring stage performers, but while "A Chorus Line was built on the premise that if you scratch the surface of an entertainer, you'll find a trembling, vulnerable child; Chicago scratched that same surface to uncover a manipulative egomaniac." Additionally, while the original production of A Chorus Line held the record for longest-running Broadway musical for many years, the revival of Chicago has since surpassed it and is now not only second only to Phantom of the Opera, it holds the record for longest running revival.
Promoted Fanboy: Before getting the Amos role in the 1996 revival, Joel Grey used "Razzle Dazzle" in 1976 to teach Gonzo the Great how to do a show-stopping act.
Spoiled by the Cast List: Some amateur versions make the mistake of listing Mary Sunshine's actor with a male name instead of with just the first initial of his name, spoiling the twist that Mary is, in fact, a cross dressing man.
Stunt Casting: The revival has become known for casting well known actors and singers in the three lead roles.
Troubled Production: The original play took a while to find its feet; it didn't help that the lead actress Gwen Verdon, who played the first Roxie, inhaled a feather and needed surgery mid-season. Liza Minnelli took over the part for a month, which kept the show from closing early and enabled it to run for over two years, though it wasn't until the second Broadway revival that it became a true blockbuster hit.
The musical wouldn't have been made, period, if Maurine's estate hadn't agreed to sell the rights to Bob Fosse after her death. It's interesting to ponder what would have changed if Maurine had sold it from the bat.
The musical film:
Actor-Inspired Element: John C. Reilly is such a clown enthusiast he insisted on designing his own clown make-up for 'Mr. Cellophane'. It was also his idea to incorporate Amos' application of the make-up during the number.
Awesome, Dear Boy: Catherine Zeta-Jones was originally approached to play Roxie. Zeta-Jones asked "Who gets to sing 'All That Jazz'?" and when they said "Velma Kelly," she immediately requested to be cast as Velma, even though it was a smaller part, just so she could sing that song. It ultimately worked out for her, though, as she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the part. As noted under Dyeing for Your Art, Zeta-Jones also cut her long brown hair into a bob to make sure that everyone knew she was doing her own dancing.
California Doubling: You'd think a movie named Chicago would be shot in the eponymous city, wouldn't you? Nope, it's mostly Ontario. Naturally, this annoyed many Chicago viewers (as well as Chicagoan John C. Reilly, who played Amos). When asked what he thought of the movie Chicago, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley replied, "I would have liked it better if it had been filmed in Chicago!" To a Toronto viewer who didn't see it as a big deal, Chicago film critic Roger Ebert retorted, "If a musical named 'O Canada' were currently being filmed in Chicago, how would that make you feel?"
Cast the Runner-Up: Catherine Zeta-Jones was originally considered for Roxie Hart before being offered Velma Kelly. Interestingly, the change came because Zeta-Jones herself requested it—she wanted to sing "All That Jazz" so badly that she took the smaller part.
The Cast Showoff: John C. Reilly is a huge clowning aficionado, and the make-up he puts on for "Mr. Cellophane" was designed by him specifically for that act.
Creator Cameo: Right before "When You're Good to Mama," a middle-aged inmate smoking a cigarette turns to Roxie and chats with her briefly. The inmate is played by legendary Broadway actress Chita Rivera, who originated the role of Velma in the first production of Chicago.
Cut Song: A few from the stage show, the most notable being Velma's "I Know a Girl", Roxie and Velma's "My Own Best Friend", and Velma and Mama Morton's "Class". The latter was actually recorded for the film and included on the soundtrack album, but was cut as it didn't fit the Musical World Hypothesis that the songs are either stage performances or imagined by Roxie.
Dyeing for Your Art: An interesting example. Even though the script didn't call for it, Catherine Zeta-Jones decided to cut her hair short for the role because she was afraid that her ordinarily long hair might obscure her face during the dancing scenes, making the audience think that she had a double doing her dancing for her. With the bob haircut that she wears in the movie, there's no doubt that it's really her.
Richard Gere took months of tap-dancing lessons for the single scene in which his interrogation of Velma Kelly is represented as a tap number in Roxie's mind. It only lasts about two minutes...and damn does it work.
Fake Nationality: Katalin Helinski (the Hunyak) is a Hungarian character with a Polish surname played by a Russian actress. She also speaks a line of Russian briefly in the film after saying the rest in Hungarian (with very bad pronunciation).
Hide Your Pregnancy: Catherine Zeta-Jones was actually a couple months pregnant in this film when she started to show they would sometimes use a body double from the back and then shoot her from waist up so you could not see the slight bump that started to appear in certain scenes.
The Other Marty: Charlize Theron was cast as Roxie when Nicholas Hytner was set to direct. After he dropped out, she had to audition again for Rob Marshall - and lost the part to Renée Zellweger.
Reality Subtext: Renée Zellweger had no singing or dancing training before the movie, mirroring how Roxie is an inexperienced character who has to learn along the way.
Star-Making Role: While he'd had plenty of experience in high profile films before, this was the movie that made John C. Reilly one of the most popular actors of the 2000s. Furthermore, it was this movie, along with Gangs of New York and The Hours, that made him one of only two actors in the 21st century to star in three Best Picture Oscar-nominated films in one year as of 2020 (the other being Michael Stuhlbarg, who starred in Call Me by Your Name, The Post and The Shape of Water, all of which were nominated for Best Picture in 2018, the last named one being the eventual winner).
Britney Spears was supposed to play the heiress in this movie. Mandy Moore likewise auditioned but was turned down for being too young.
Hugh Jackman was offered the role of Billy Flynn, but he turned it down, as he felt that he was too young for the part. Later, he admitted that he regretted making that decision. John Travolta was repeatedly offered the part but kept turning it down. He too later said he regretted it. Other candidates were John Cusack, Rupert Everett, Kevin Kline, Steve Martin and Kevin Spacey.
The "Razzle-Dazzle" 2-disc special edition DVD was originally announced as a 3-disc release, with the 3rd disc containing the film's soundtrack. For whatever reason, this didn't happen.
, convicted to death row partially due to her inability to speak English. In reality, she was Italian, not Hungarian. She was later proven innocent thanks to a much more competent defence lawyer taking up her appeal all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court and getting the charges dropped.