Smartest Girl in Town "ketchup blood" on his face and then embraces him. RKO Pictures was also the studio which produced the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers series of films, thus "Smartest Girl's" comic supporting players, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore and Erik Rhodes, all had prominent roles in the previous year's Astaire-Rogers hit, "Top Hat". Furthermore, two months before "Smartest Girl's" release, Blore and Broderick were seen in the dancing duo's very successful 1936 effort, "Swing Time" and, the previous year, had been in another RKO musical comedy, "To Beat the Band". As for Blore and Rhodes, both had earlier appeared in the first Astaire-Rogers vehicle,
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers long period apart, Astaire and Rogers made only one movie together in 1938, the 80-minute "Carefree". During their time apart, Rogers appeared in the successful movie "Stage Door", while Astaire's career did not reach the same heights he had experienced with Rogers. The duo reunited, but "Carefree" marked a departure for their on-screen partnership, featuring Astaire in a role unlike his usual typecast persona, as well as less emphasis on the musical element of the film. "Carefree" was originally going to contain sequences shot in Technicolor, but RKO considered the cost prohibitive so it was filmed in black and white.