Trivia

After this film, Fred Astaire effectively retired from musicals, preferring to concentrate on non-musical roles, though he would produce several musical specials for TV in the next few years. He wouldn't make another musical until Finian's Rainbow (1968).

Cole Porter's original lyrics were slightly bowdlerized for the movie. For example, Fred Astaire sings a line in "Stereophonic Sound" about how audiences don't want to see a kiss "unless her lips are scarlet/and her mouth is five feet wide." In the original Broadway musical, the lyrics were "unless her lips are scarlet/and her bosom's five feet wide."

In addition to reviving his on-stage role for this movie, George Tobias also appeared in the original film Ninotchka (1939), although in an entirely different role.

This was the first film Rouben Mamoulian had directed in nine years, and the last film he was officially credited as director. Although he was engaged and has uncredited footage in both Porgy and Bess (1959) and Cleopatra (1963), and was considered for several other film productions, most of the rest of his career consisted of directing plays on Broadway.

This film marked a return to MGM of Jules Munshin, who had been signed by the studio in 1947 in response to his breakout stage success in Harold Rome's postwar musical "Call Me Mister" (1946). After his screen debut in Easter Parade (1948), Munshin was quickly cast back-to-back in That Midnight Kiss (1949), Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), and On the Town (1949), after which the studio unceremoniously dropped his option. Nearly 10 years later, he was invited back to appear in both this movie and Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957).