When Conrad Wiedell takes Bette Davis and does the jitterbug, she felt he was holding back in rehearsals and told him to treat her like an experienced dance partner. When the cameras rolled, Wiedell--a national jitterbug champion hired specifically for this dance--pulled out all the stops and swung her around and she fell on her knee. As she finishes her song, she is seen limping out of the nightclub set and leaning against a post, rubbing her knee. This was a real injury, but she finished the song despite the pain. When director David Butler asked Davis to "try it once more," she replied, "No! No! I said one take, and that was it." She then turned to the press who had shown up to watch her number, telling them "Show's over, gentlemen. Now get the hell out."
Probably Errol Flynn's most uncharacteristic screen appearance occurred in this film when he sang and danced his way through a pub number entitled "That's What You Jolly Well Get."
Reportedly the only film in which Bette Davis sings. The Oscar-nominated song "They're Either Too Young or Too Old" introduced here by Davis became a hit for Jimmy Dorsey with vocalist Kitty Kallen.
Each star was paid $50,000 ($756,000 in 2021) for their appearance in this film, which was then donated to The Hollywood Canteen, a club at 1451 Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood for servicemen and women. The club had food, dancing and entertainment, all for free. It was open from October 3, 1942 to November 22, 1945 and was founded by Bette Davis and John Garfield. The salaries plus admissions to this film raised over $2M for the club. For a feature film about the club see Hollywood Canteen (1944).
In the film, Eddie Cantor winds up in a mental hospital, where he is mistakenly scheduled for a lobotomy. As he flees the operating room, Cantor passes a gurney and meets the real patient for the lobotomy. It is Bert Gordon, a.k.a. "The Mad Russian," a regular and very popular character on Cantor's weekly radio comedy show. Gordon greets Cantor with the Mad Russian's signature line, "How do you do-oo-oo?"