In the Meantime, Darling is a 1944

1944 in film

The year 1944 in film involved some significant events, including the wholesome, award-winning Going My Way plus popular murder mysteries such as Double Indemnity, Gaslight and Laura.-Events:*July 20 - Since You Went Away is released....

 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 produced and directed by Otto Preminger

Otto Preminger

Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...

. The screenplay by Arthur Kober and Michael Uris focuses on a wealthy war bride who is forced to adjust to living in spartan conditions in military housing during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

Plot

Due to limited wartime housing, Army lieutenant Danny Ferguson and fiancée Maggie Preston must postpone their wedding until a room in the Craig Hotel, where married officers stationed at nearby Camp Fielding live with their wives, becomes available. When their accommodations are ready, Maggie arrives with her wealthy parents Henry and Vera, who are unhappy about the living conditions their daughter will be forced to endure. Initially Maggie is too happy to care, but once the newlywed is left alone during the day while her husband is on the base, she begins to become disenchanted with her surroundings and the lack of service her privileged background has groomed her to expect.

Unaware of what is expected of her in her new capacity of army wife, Maggie quickly becomes an outcast among the other women. Not helping her situation is an obvious lack of any domestic skills that would allow her to assist in the daily routine at the hotel. Increasingly upset with her situation, she lashes out at hotel manager Jerry Armstrong. Her mood softens when she learns Jerry's husband was killed in battle overseas and she has remained at the hotel to honor his memory.

Maggie's attitude changes and she befriends some of the other wives, particularly Shirley, who is married to Danny's best friend Red Pianatowski. When Danny finds himself the target of snide remarks made by his fellow officers, he discovers Maggie asked her father to use his influence to keep his son-in-law based in the States instead of being shipped overseas. Infuriated by her inappropriate interference, he angrily storms out of their room, and Maggie prepares to return to her parents in Philadelphia.

When Danny returns with Philip, they discover a book about infant care Maggie had purchased to help her assist the expectant mothers, and he assumes she is pregnant. Rushing to the train station, he begs her to return. That night, at a dance honoring a visiting general, Red tells Shirley Maggie is expecting a baby. As Maggie tries to tell her husband the truth, he receives word his company is being sent overseas. Danny is disappointed to learn he is not going to be a father after all, but Maggie reassures him she will be anxious to start a family as soon as he returns. After Danny and Red ship out, Maggie and Shirley decide to find jobs in the defense industry and do what they can to support their husbands and the rest of the troops.

Production

The initial draft of the screenplay, entitled Paris, Tennessee, was completed in July 1943, and 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

 executive Darryl F. Zanuck

Darryl F. Zanuck

Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...

 assigned the project to Archie Mayo

Archie Mayo

Archie Mayo was a movie director and stage actor who moved to Hollywood in 1915 and began working as a director in 1917....

. The script underwent numerous revisions and was retitled Army Wife before going into production as I Married a Soldier in December. By then Zanuck agreed to allow Preminger to direct as well as produce the film. It marked the screen debut of Frank Latimore

Frank Latimore

Franklin Latimore was an American actor best known for his character ‘Dr. Ed Coleridge’ on the television soap opera Ryan's Hope....

 and Gale Robbins

Gale Robbins

Gale Robbins was an American actress and singer.Born in Indiana, Robbins graduated from high school in June 1939 and began her career with the Phil Levant band in 1940...

 and the first time Jeanne Crain

Jeanne Crain

Jeanne Elizabeth Crain was an American actress.-Early life:Crain was born in Barstow, California, to George A. Crain, a school teacher, and Loretta Carr; she was of Irish heritage on her mother's side, and of English and distant French descent on her father's...

 would receive top billing. The cast also included future director Blake Edwards

Blake Edwards

Blake Edwards was an American film director, screenwriter and producer.Edwards' career began in the 1940s as an actor, but he soon turned to writing radio scripts at Columbia Pictures...

 in a small, uncredited supporting role.

The screenplay continued to undergo extensive changes as filming progressed, and on February 4, 1944, the Los Angeles Examiner reported the project was in trouble. Joseph Breen

Joseph Breen

Joseph Breen is an American soap opera actor.He played contract parts on both Guiding Light and Loving before being offered his most front-burner role to date: that of Lisa’s long-lost son, Scott Eldridge, on As the World Turns...

, who headed the Production Code Administration

Production Code Administration

The Production Code Administration was established by the Motion Picture Association of America in 1934. The PCA required all filmmakers to submit their films for approval before release.-See also:* Pre-Code* Joseph Breen* Will H. Hays...

, was certain the British Board of Film Censors

British Board of Film Classification

The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...

 would object to a scene showing the newlywed couple in bed and recommended Preminger restage it, although the shot remained in both the US and UK releases. It was the first film to show a married couple in bed since the Motion Picture Production Code was established in 1934, a fact that greatly pleased Preminger.

During filming, the director realized Eugene Pallette

Eugene Pallette

Eugene William Pallette was an American actor. He appeared in over 240 silent era and sound era motion pictures between 1913 and 1946....

, cast as Maggie's father, was "an admirer of Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 [and] was convinced that Germany would win the war." Preminger also discovered the actor was a racist

Racism

Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...

 when he refused to sit next to African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 cast member Clarence Muse

Clarence Muse

Clarence Muse was an actor, screenwriter, director, composer, and lawyer. He was inducted in the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1973. Muse was the first African American to "star" in a film. He acted for more than sixty years, and appeared in more than 150 movies.-Life and career:Born in...

 and used a racial slur to refer to him. Infuriated, the director immediately fired Pallette and, although he remains in scenes he already had filmed, the remainder of his role not yet shot was eliminated from the script.

After principal photography was completed, the screenplay underwent more revisions in order to enhance the screen presence of Jeanne Crain. After these additional scenes were filmed in late March 1944, the film's title was changed yet again to In the Meantime, Darling.

The song "How Many Times Do I Have to Tell You," performed by Gale Robbins during the dance sequence, was written by Jimmy McHugh

Jimmy McHugh

James Francis McHugh was a U.S. composer. One of the most prolific songwriters from the 1920s to the 1950s, he composed over 270 songs...

 and Harold Adamson

Harold Adamson

For the Toronto Police Chief see Harold Adamson Harold Adamson was an American lyricist during the 1930s and 1940s.- Biography :...

.

Cast

• Jeanne Crain
  Jeanne Crain
  Jeanne Elizabeth Crain was an American actress.-Early life:Crain was born in Barstow, California, to George A. Crain, a school teacher, and Loretta Carr; she was of Irish heritage on her mother's side, and of English and distant French descent on her father's...
  
   ..... Maggie Preston
• Frank Latimore
  Frank Latimore
  Franklin Latimore was an American actor best known for his character ‘Dr. Ed Coleridge’ on the television soap opera Ryan's Hope....
  
   ..... Lt. Daniel Ferguson
• Stanley Prager
  Stanley Prager
  Stanley Prager was an American actor and a television and theatre director.Born in New York City, Prager began his career as the stage manager for the Broadway production The Skin of Our Teeth in 1942...
  
   ..... Lt. Red Pianatowski
• Gale Robbins
  Gale Robbins
  Gale Robbins was an American actress and singer.Born in Indiana, Robbins graduated from high school in June 1939 and began her career with the Phil Levant band in 1940...
  
   ..... Shirley Pianatowski
• Eugene Pallette
  Eugene Pallette
  Eugene William Pallette was an American actor. He appeared in over 240 silent era and sound era motion pictures between 1913 and 1946....
  
   ..... Henry B. Preston
• Mary Nash
  Mary Nash
  -Early life:Nash was born on August 15, 1884 in Troy, New York, to parents Philip Nash, who worked for B. F. Keith Vaudeville Circuit, and Ellen Frances MacNamara. She was educated at the Convent of St. Anne in Montreal and trained for acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts...
  
   ..... Vera Preston
• Cara Williams
  Cara Williams
  Cara Williams is an American film and television actress.-Biography:Born as Bernice Kamiat to an Austrian emigrant father and a mother of Romanian descent, she began her screen acting career in 1941, and was initially billed as Bernice Kay...
  
   ..... Ruby Mae Sayre
• Heather Angel ..... Mrs. Nelson