This was one of the first films to use the word "sex." Ray Milland says, "Rage is a pretty good substitute for sex, isn't it?"
Paramount paid $285,000 for the film rights to the stage hit, a record at the time. $115,000 to producer Sam Harris, $85,000 to librettist Moss Hart and $42,500 each to composer Kurt Weill and lyricist Ira Gershwin.
Studio costume departments maintained a fur vault providing fur pelts for coats and costume trimming. The floor length mink skirt for Ginger Rogers used mink pelts from this vault. The original mink skirt was too heavy to wear. Barbara "Madam" Karinska was asked to rebuild the skirt. Karinska built a wire hoop covered with a fine netting, hanging and spacing the mink pelts apart from each other; supported by net, reducing the number of mink pelts on the skirt's total weight, allowing the skirt's flexibility on the actress' body during the dance sequence.
"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60-minute radio adaptation of the movie on January 29, 1945, with Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland reprising their film roles.
In the original Broadway production, Danny Kaye sang his famous patter song, "Tchaikovsky (And Other Russians)," in which he dashed off the names of 50 Russian composers in 39 seconds. By the time the movie version was made, Kaye was under contract with Samuel Goldwyn, and could not appear in the film. His role as the photographer, Russell Paxton, was given to Mischa Auer, and the "Tchaikovsky" number was dropped.