The movie is based on the real-life experiences of Ruth McKinney, and her sister Eileen. In 1934, Ruth and Eileen McKinney moved to New York from Columbus, Ohio. They rented a $45-a-month basement apartment at 14 Gay Street in Greenwich Village, above the Christopher Street subway station. Ruth wrote about their eccentric neighbors and the trials of living in a basement apartment in her column titled, "My Sister Eileen," which was published in "The New Yorker" (called "The Manhatter" in the movie). As seen in the film, "The New Yorker" editor Harold Ross was at first reluctant to publish Ruth McKinney's columns, preferring to keep his magazine a "High Society" publication, but he eventually relented. Ruth's columns were gathered in a book, "My Sister Eileen," which was published in 1938. Eileen McKinney moved to Los Angeles, where she married novelist and screenwriter Nathanael West (author of the perennial Hollywood novel, "The Day of the Locust"). Unfortunately, Eileen McKinney and Nathanael West were both killed in a car accident in Los Angeles on December 22, 1940, only four days before they were scheduled to attend the Broadway opening of the play, "My Sister Eileen." Ruth McKinney died in 1972 at age 60.
Several characters from the play (and from Ruth McKinney's real-life experiences) were changed for the movie. In real life, the fortune teller Effie Shelton was a prostitute named Violet who had previously occupied the Greenwich Village apartment. The McKinney sisters often returned home to find Violet's customers waiting for her in their apartment. Also, the football player, Wreck, and his wife are depicted as a married couple in the film. In real life, and in the Broadway play, they were not married but lived together.
Rosalind Russell shares the screen with actress and former vaudevillian June Havoc. Twenty years later, Russell portrayed Havoc's mother in the musical Gypsy (1962).
Arnold Stang's and Jeff Donnell's first feature film. (Donnell, as a child, adopted the nickname "Jeff" after the character in her favorite comic strip, 'Mutt and Jeff' (1907- 1983). To avoid gender confusion, she was sometimes billed as "(Miss) Jeff Donnell").
To win the starring role of Ruth, Rosalind Russell had to sign a 5-year contract with Columbia Pictures, guaranteeing 2 films per year.