The original script included an early scene where Charles Boyer talks to a cockroach in his room. Boyer dismissed the scene as idiotic and convinced director Mitchell Leisen to delete it; screenwriters Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett were so incensed at Leisen for giving in, they resolved to direct and produce their own movies from then on.
This marked the first time a pair of siblings were nominated for Academy Awards in the same category with both Olivia de Havilland and her younger sister Joan Fontaine making the cut for Best Actress. Fontaine won for her performance in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941). This wouldn't happen again until 1966 when Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave found themselves both competing for Best Actress, though in that instance neither won.
Mitchell Leisen joined the Screen Actors Guild so he could play the part of the director of I Wanted Wings (1941), but he donated his acting wages to charity. The scene depicted from that movie was reshot specifically for inclusion in this movie.
Iscovescu appears at the Paramount soundstage to peddle his life story to director Dwight Saxon (Mitchell Leisen). Veronica Lake and Richard Webb are shown rehearsing a scene from I Wanted Wings (1941) (also directed by Leisen). This scene was re-shot for inclusion in the film.