Alice Faye was set to play the role of Glenda, but she fell ill with appendicitis and was replaced by Betty Grable. Although Miss Grable was making films for 10 years, this was the role that made her a star. Cesar Romero contracted para-typhoid and was replaced by Leonid Kinskey.
John Hay Whitney, head of the motion picture section of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, convinced 20th Century Fox to spend $40,000 for re-shooting scenes that described native customs in an slightly unfavourable light.
Although this film marked Betty Grable's debut in perfected, three-strip Technicolor, she already had appeared once in early Technicolor. Thirteen-year-old Betty, as one of The Goldwyn Girls, led off the Busby Berkeley-staged production number, "Cowboys" (music by Walter Donaldson, lyrics by Gus Kahn) in Whoopee!. That same year, Miss Grable had a chorus bit in the New Movietone Follies of 1930, which contained sequences shot in the Multicolor process.
Director Irving Cummings thought the dance number by the Nicholas Brothers (Fayard Nicholas and Harold Nicholas) was too long, but dance director Nick Castle convinced him to leave it uncut at a test screening. The test audience cheered so much that they had to rewind the film.
Starting with this film, Betty Grable would blossom as the box-office queen of Technicolor musicals. Between 1940 and 1955, Miss Grable was showcased in 22 tailor-made color vehicles at Twentieth Century-Fox, plus one at Columbia, Three for the Show. Note: Betty's last movie, How to Be Very, Very Popular, was shot in Color by DeLuxe.
The part of Ricardo Quintana was intended for Desi Arnaz, but when he was forced to withdraw from the project for personal reasons, Don Ameche was cast as Ricardo Quintana, and his singing voice had to be dubbed completely.
This film represents two noteworthy firsts in the career of Carmen Miranda: her first Technicolor movie and her first American production. Miss Miranda already had appeared in six Brazilian pictures released from 1933 to 1940.
When Darrilyn Zanuck DePineda's crew discovered her, Carmen Miranda was working in a nightclub, and the manager would not let her out of her contract, so she was filmed singing inside the nightclub and only appears in one scene in the entire movie!