Berman negotiated with Universal Pictures for the loan of Bette Davis, whose contract with the studio just had been renewed following her completion of "Waterloo Bridge", and Carl Laemmle, Jr. agreed to loan her out for a fee of $300 per week. Davis was pleased with the attention paid to her by cinematographer J. Roy Hunt. "I was truly overjoyed," she later recalled. "Plus the part I played was an important one - and a charming one. It gave me some confidence in myself for the first time since leaving the theater in New York."