Filmed in CinemaScope, the Technicolor production was directed by George Sidney and written by Samuel A. Taylor from a story by Leo Katcher.

Musician Peter Duchin, whose relationship with his father is a major subject of the film, has written very negatively about the script, saying there was too much unnecessary fictionalization of his parents' lives and deaths.

Fresh out of pharmacy school, young Eddy Duchin travels to New York in the 1920s to take a job playing piano for bandleader Leo Reisman's orchestra.

When he is invited to the home of her wealthy aunt and uncle, the Wadsworths, for a party, Eddy is disappointed to discover that he has been asked there merely to entertain.

After the war he is finally persuaded to visit his son, where he meets Peter's governess, a British woman named Chiquita, who grows on him after an uneasy start.

[4] George Sidney, the director, said he left MGM to work at Columbia in order to make the film (he had been taught piano by Duchin and seen the pianist's last concert).

[4] In November 1954 Columbia announced Sidney would direct, Jerry Wald would produce, and Moss Hart would write the script, the latter under a three-picture deal.

Twelve of the film's songs were released in The Sound Track Album, The Eddy Duchin Story, with Carmen Cavallaro at the piano.