Joan Crawford was asked by studio boss Jack L. Warner to play Doris Day's sister in the film. Crawford declined, saying, "Come on, Jack. No one would ever believe that I would have Doris Day for a sister!"
This was one of only a handful of straight-up dramas in which Doris Day ever appeared, and was her first (and only) film for Warner Brothers in which she did not sing a note. She accepted this role partly for the opportunity to work with one of her childhood idols, Ginger Rogers.
The studio wanted Lauren Bacall and Doris Day to star in the film, but Bacall went to Africa with her husband Humphrey Bogart to film The African Queen (1951).
When she heard that she would be co-starring with Ginger Rogers, Doris Day was delighted; before her success as a Big Band vocalist, Day had aspired to be a dancer, and Rogers had been one of her childhood idols.