MGM gave composer Miklós Rózsa only a week's notice to come up with a ballet for Moira Shearer. The composer said the assignment was beyond his range under the circumstances and was asked to provide an alternate piece. He selected Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini".
The similarities between this film's second story ("Mademoiselle", featuring Ethel Barrymore, Leslie Caron, Farley Granger, and Ricky Nelson) and Tom Hanks' 1990s hit Big (1988) suggest that the writer of the latter may have been inspired by the former.
Buoyed by Moira Shearer's performance in this film, producer Arthur Freed hoped to engage her to stay on at MGM to play Fiona in Brigadoon (1954). At that point, the Lerner-Loewe musical was slated to be shot on location in Shearer's native Scotland, but ultimately the mercurial weather there led the studio to film it on home ground in Culver City. The new production schedule conflicted with Shearer's ballet engagements, which led to the casting of Cyd Charisse.