Fields and Jerome Chodorov, which was inspired by a series of autobiographical short stories by Ruth McKenney originally published in The New Yorker.

Witty Ruth and pretty Eileen Sherwood, sisters from Columbus, Ohio, relocate to New York City and settle in a rundown basement studio apartment in a Greenwich Village building owned by Papa Appopoulos.

Soda fountain manager Frank Lippincott lends her a sympathetic ear and offers his assistance, assuring her many theatrical people eat at the counter.

When newspaper reporter Chick Clark overhears Frank telling Eileen about an audition, he claims to know the show's producer and assures her he can get her an interview with him.

The following day, Ruth receives a phone call asking her to cover the arrival of the Brazilian Navy for the local paper.

In order to calm them down, Ruth and Eileen initiate a Conga line, which rapidly evolves into a wild dance party in the street that draws the attention of the police, and everyone is arrested.

Frank arrives with a box of chocolates for Eileen, Ted and Helen reconcile, and the sisters decide to remain in New York.

Fields and Jerome Chodorov adapted their 1940 play for Wonderful Town, with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein.

Its success on Broadway prompted Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, which had released the 1942 screen adaptation of the play, to seek the film rights to the musical.

[3] Screenwriter/director Richard Quine, who had portrayed Frank Lippincott in the 1940 stage play and the 1942 screen adaptation,[3] originally cast Judy Holliday in the role of Ruth Sherwood.

When the actress got into a contract dispute with the studio, she was replaced by Betty Garrett, who had been essentially, but not officially, blacklisted due to her marriage to Larry Parks, a one-time member of the Communist Party, who had been forced to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

A little over a year after the film's release, Garrett and Parks replaced Judy Holliday and Sydney Chaplin, respectively, on Broadway for a month in the smash hit Comden-Green-Styne musical Bells Are Ringing.

When the two, in a scene of mad seduction, sing "It's Bigger Than You and Me," the breadth of the spoof is established and the high point of the comedy is reached.

He thought "some Bob Fosse choreography and Jule Styne–Leo Robin songs wittily capture the Village esprit" but felt the subplot involving Lemmon was "alarmingly chauvinistic."