In 1945, Roger Halyard is a stiff-upper-lipped British gentleman who lives on a South Pacific island with his three nubile, naive daughters, Violet, Hester and Gloria.

Hoping to shelter the girls from the lascivious advances of the opposite sex, Halyard is thwarted when 1,500 Marines arrive to transform the island into an aircraft landing base.

[2] Louella Parsons revealed in her syndicated newspaper column that the movie rights to the book had been purchased by Harry Cohn for Columbia Studios three months before its publication.

[2] The three daughters, who had independent lifestyles and seldom interacted in the book, were rendered as less mature and closer knit in the screenplay, which also invented the character of Thelma the housekeeper.

[2] The book's chief villain, Colonel Reade, was whitewashed from a boozy lecher to a sympathetic commander, while the youngest daughter was renamed from Elsie to Gloria and made two years younger in the movie.