The script had been around for years at MGM. It was originally going to be a movie for William Powell and Myrna Loy. A couple of years later it was planned for Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. However, both projects fell through and the script was forgotten about. Years later Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz showed interest in making another movie and they picked this script.
Although Mabel Albertson gets billing on the title page, she appears in just one scene and has only two lines, suggesting other scenes might have been cut.
This was the second film of a multi-picture deal Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz signed with MGM when I Love Lucy (1951) was TV's highest-rated show. (The first film was The Long, Long Trailer (1954) which made a profit of over $1.5M.) When this picture failed miserably with both critics and audiences, the balance of the contract went unfulfilled.
Natalie Schafer and Louis Calhern both had featured parts. They had been married to each other in real life from 1933-42.