F. Scott Fitzgerald, originally assigned to write the picture, was dismissed in a humiliating scene in front of the Hanover Inn during the 1939 Carnival.
Budd Schulberg was also fired off the film with Fitzgerald. And it all started with two bottles of champagne that Budd's father, B.P. Schulberg, the former head of Paramount (1925-32), had given to Budd and Fitzgerald as a bon voyage gift at the train station in Los Angeles as they headed east to Dartmouth, Budd's Alma Mater. He did not know that Fitzgerald was a struggling alcoholic.