[3] After Farrow had turned in what he thought was the finished film, RKO studio boss Howard Hughes intervened and caused extensive re-writes, re-casting, and re-shooting under the supervision of Richard Fleischer, whom Hughes coerced into cooperation by threatening not to release The Narrow Margin, a film that Fleischer had just finished for RKO.

This post-production process took a great deal of time and money, costing about the same amount – $850,000 – as the film lost at the box office in its initial release.

Milner overhears two guests, self-proclaimed author Martin Krafft and a man named Thompson, planning something which he suspects involves him.

Hobson also thinks it is a poor idea because Cardigan's film contract is expiring and the bad publicity would make it hard to get a new one.

Milner shows his softer side when he helps unhappy newlywed Jennie Stone by cheating at poker to win back her husband's gambling losses from investment broker Myron Winton.

While the actor keeps the mobsters pinned down with his hunting rifle, Milner sneaks back onto the boat, knowing that the only way out of his mess is to deal with Ferraro once and for all.

After killing two of the thugs and wounding and capturing Thompson, Cardigan mounts a rescue with the reluctant assistance of the Mexican police and a couple of the more adventurous guests.

Cast notes: The film – which was at one stage known as Star Sapphire, the title of the unpublished story by Gerald Drayson it was based on[8] – was announced in July 1949 with Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum already attached.

The primary conduit of the comedy of the film was the character of the ham Shakespearean actor Mark Cardigan, played by Vincent Price.

[14] “Vincent Price is superb in his one right role—that of a ham actor thrown suddenly into a situation calling for high melodramatic courage.”—Film critic Manny Farber in The Nation, January 15, 1952.

[15] Howard Hughes, the Texas billionaire who had bought RKO Pictures in 1948,[16] loved Vincent Price's character, and demanded of director John Farrow that it be expanded.

[21] This required that the tank with the yacht set be emptied, have a portion rebuilt to deepen it to accommodate the sinking as scripted and be refilled.

When Hughes viewed the new material, he decided that he did not like the actor playing the character Ferraro, Lee Van Cleef, and ordered the scenes reshot.

[26] Hughes promoted the film with a giant firework-shooting billboard featuring Mitchum and Russell that spanned Wilshire Boulevard, proclaiming the two as "the hottest combination to ever hit the screen".

[27] In a review of the film, the staff at Variety magazine lauded the pairing of Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell as the lead characters, writing, "[The] two strike plenty of sparks in their meetings as each waits out plot development ...

[30] Writing in The Nation, film critic Manny Farber describes His Kind of Woman as “good course romantic-adventure nonsense, exploiting the expressive dead-pans of Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell, a young man and a young woman who would probably enjoy doing in real life what they have to do here for RKO.”[31] Farber adds: “Russell’s petulant, toneless rendition of “Five Little Miles From San Berdoo” is high art of a sort.”[15] Filmmaker Brian De Palma sought to helm a remake in the 2000s and 2010s,[32] though it was ultimately not produced because RKO refused to relinquish the rights to the property.