Carole Lombard insisted her friend Kay Francis get the role of Maida, as her career was waning and she had been dropped by Warner Bros. the previous year, where she had worked for most of the decade.
This movie was intended to be a reunion of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, but following the failure of Bringing Up Baby (1938) at the box office from the previous year, Hepburn left RKO after being deemed box office poison. Carole Lombard subsequently was brought in as her replacement.
The front of the Walkers' home, used in the scene where Julie Eden arrives at the wife's garden party, is the front portico of the old Selznick Studio in Culver City, where Gone with the Wind (1939) was being filmed at the same time this was made.
This film was a success at the box office, earning RKO a profit of $155,000 (over $3.33M in 2022) according to studio records.
According to contemporary articles in The Hollywood Reporter, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was to play the role of Alex Walker.