Samuel's comment about Roosevelt messing around with the holidays again is a reference to the president changing the official date when Thanksgiving is celebrated.
Quicksilver is the common name for mercury. But mercury isn't that widely available. In the U.S. it's mined in just a few places in California. Only two other states have small quantities - Arkansas and Texas.
One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since. However, because of legal complications, this particular title was not included in the original television package and was not televised until many years later.
The basic premise of the plot here is similar to the 1920s Broadway musical No, No, Nanette, in which an unknown actress makes a bet with her wealthy uncle in order to raise money for a play she hopes to star in. She'll have to answer "No" to everything she's asked for 24 hours. Its best known screen adaptation is the Warner Brothers musical Tea for Two (1950), starring Doris Day as the actress and S.Z. Sakall as the wealthy uncle.
Third of three feature films pairing Bob Hope with Paulette Goddard. The other two pictures are The Cat and the Canary (1939) and The Ghost Breakers (1940).