Fred Astaire would later refer to this as the worst film he ever made. Artie Shaw confided that it put him off film acting.
While Fred Astaire was making this film, Ginger Rogers was starring in Kitty Foyle (1940). This went on to win her the Academy Award for Best Actress. After she won, Astaire sent her a telegram simply reading "Ouch".
The song and dance number "I Ain't Hep to That Step But I'll Dig It" was shot in one take after rigorous rehearsals. Fred Astaire was apprehensive about doing the number as he didn't rate Paulette Goddard as a dancer but she acquitted herself sufficiently for him to be happy with the take. This proved to be the last routine by Astaire that was shot in one take, such was the nature of his professionalism. Goddard later said that she could never go through all that again, due to was the intensity of the rehearsals.
Cut from the movie was "Me and the Ghost Upstairs" (music by Bernard Hanighen, lyrics by Johnny Mercer), sung by Fred Astaire and danced by him with the film's dance director, Hermes Pan, who was covered by a sheet. The pre-recording and rehearsal footage still exist. Mr. Astaire's commercial waxing, initially released by Columbia Records on a single, has been reissued on two import CD box sets: "The Centenary Collection" from by the British label Castle Pulse, and "Songs & Pictures 1928-1944" on EPM Music, a French company.
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