[2] Controversial on concept, the official screenplay was re-tooled and rewritten to appease Hollywood censorship and relied on actor input and improvisation, causing long delays and budget extensions.

One December, French painter (and famed womanizer) Michel Marnet meets American singer Terry McKay aboard a liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean.

His paintings fail to sell, so he finds work designing advertising billboards around the city, while Terry breaks off her engagement to Kenneth and successfully negotiates a contract with a Philadelphia nightclub to perform through to June.

Other uncredited actors include Joan Leslie, Oscar O'Shea, Lloyd Ingraham, Bess Flowers and Harold Miller (as couple on liner), Phyllis Kennedy, and Gerald Mohr.

[5] His wife suggested they should go on a cruising vacation around Europe to combat his writer's block, and when they returned to the United States, they watched the Statue of Liberty pass.

[11][12] James Anderson stood as assistant director,[4] Edward Dmytryk and George Hively were the movie's editors, and Roy Webb composed the film score.

[20] Irene Dunne later noted that the dialog changed frequently, and the cast received pieces of paper between filming; McCarey's common directing tactic of improvisation also continued throughout.

[22] News columnists visiting the set observed the actors waiting around for their dialog as scenes would be rewritten moments before shooting:[23] "'I've been here doing nothing since 8 o'clock this morning,' [Boyer tells] me (it is now 4 in the afternoon)," reported Sheilah Graham.

[34] Initially a period piece set in the 1850s about the tragic romance of a French ambassador,[35][25] the final draft of the script was complete and filming was announced to begin September 15,[36] but it was later pushed back a month.

[39][Note 2] The film premiered March 16 at the Music Hall with a pink champagne-themed cocktail party for Dunne, emceed by W. G. Van Schmus; McCarey was on vacation in Santa Monica and could not attend.

"[46] "The screenplay is an exceptionally intelligent effort," wrote the Box Office Digest, "[and] McCarey's skill in handling individual scenes with the old [Hal] Roach technique carries through this tough spot and on to a grand climax,"[47] but the review added: "It must be unfortunately recorded that there is a let down in interest for a half reel when [Michel and Terry] are separated.

"[47] Meanwhile, The Charlotte Observer found the movie refreshing, describing it as "outdoing" other romances that are "slap-happy wherein boy spanks girl or shoves her into the fish pond by way of displaying his affections.

"[48] Pare Lorentz described the film as "a mood, rather than a story" as McCarey effortlessly balanced the conflicting tones of comedy and melodrama, "[keeping] it alive by expert interpolations.

"[49] Stage also praised the direction: "McCarey is the man responsible for shifting, with no detectable trickery, from the brittle comedy of the early sequences to the genuine emotionalism of the later.

"[50] On characterization, The New York Times remarked on "the facility with which [Boyer and Dunne] have matched the changes of their script—playing it lightly now, soberly next, but always credibly, always in character, always with a superb utilization of the material at hand.

[56] The only notable criticism of characters came from Dunne herself, who told Silver Screen years later: "If I had been in that girl's place, far from hiding, I would've trundled my wheelchair up and down the sidewalks of New York looking for [Michel].

Tom Flannery's filmography book 1939: The Year in Movies wrote that Dunne and Boyer "generated [the most] chemistry, charisma [and] sensuality" in Hollywood, despite 1939 producing the best couples in "Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh [in Gone with the Wind], Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon [in Wuthering Heights], Leslie Howard and Ingrid Bergman [in Intermezzo].

"[62] William K. Everson joined the critics of the past that praised McCarey balancing the comedy and drama perfectly, and noted Terry saying goodbye to Grandma Janou was realistically "tender and poignant[;] such moments all too rarely are in film.

[Note 3] Screenwriter Nora Ephron, first introduced to the movie when she was a child,[68] referenced it heavily in Sleepless in Seattle,[69][70] allegedly causing rentals of the film to increase.

[citation needed] Irene Dunne and Deborah Kerr's Terry performances did not receive as much comparison as Charles Boyer's Michel and Cary Grant's Nicky, whose characters divided critics and analysts per review.