"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on
October 10, 1949 with Cary Grant reprising his film role.
"Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on July 1, 1949 with Cary Grant reprising his film role.
"Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on June 9, 1950 with Cary Grant again reprising his film role.
Although this film was from the novel of the same name, much of the story is autobiographical. Eric Hodgins and his wife built the actual house in the rural Litchfield County, Connecticut town of New Milford. Located in the bucolic Merryall section of town, the house recently sold for $1.2 million.
Grand total for the house and property was $38,000 according to Mrs. Blandings in their first night in the house. Assuming the factor used to arrive at the 2010 value show above is correct, the total cost of the house and property would be $340,000.
In the movie, a flooded excavation plagues the Blandings and their builders, requiring pumps to empty it. In reality, Eric Hodgins reported in his interview with LIFE magazine that the movie set excavation leaked so badly that large pumps were required just to keep it filled for shooting.
Many critics in 1948 felt that Cary Grant and Myrna Loy were too old to play the naive young couple who don't know about building a house.
The house "Blandings' Way" really exists on Indian Hill Road in New Milford, Connecticut. It's a beautiful huge white art deco/colonial house that has many of the actual rooms discussed in the movie - such as a room to cut flowers. Also less than a mile away on Long Mountain Road is executive producer of the movie and MGM head Dore Schary's old country home.
The house built for the movie still exists in Malibu California at coordinates: 34 degrees 5' 41"N 118 degrees 42'43"W on the old 20th Century Fox Ranch.
The pairing of Irene Dunne and Cary Grant was a consistent box office winner and director H.C. Potter wanted Dunne for the role of Muriel Blandings. Unfortunately, she was already working on another RKO film, I Remember Mama, and wasn't available for this production.