Paramount wanted to release the film during the summer, but Lewis considered it a holiday film and wanted to hold it back for a Christmas release. The only way the studio would delay its release was for Lewis to provide them with another movie they could release in its place in the summer. Lewis agreed and wrote, produced, and directed "The Bellboy" in four weeks in February 1960 while he was performing at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. That movie was released on July 20, 1960.