knife from a roast pig and throws it at the clock, effectively stopping time. The two acknowledge their love and, as the gallery portraits look on, they fly up and crash through the roof. The following morning, Teglash awakens to find the knife still in the pig and the clock ticking. Angelina arrives, and Teglash tells her he is freeing her husband and then describes his dream, touching her with his obvious deep feelings for her. When Mario arrives, she assures him she had nothing to do with the colonel. Time passes, but Teglash still mourns the loss of Angelina. One night, while he is asleep, she arrives and falls asleep in a chair near his bed. Teglash revisits his prior dream, but this time the knife falls from the clock and Angelina stabs him with it. He awakens with a start and finds Angelina, who tells him Mario has left her and proposes they wed. That night at midnight, the portraits come to life once again to celebrate their union with song and dance. Cast Betty Grable as Francesca/Angelina Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as Colonel Teglash/The Duke Cesar Romero as Mario Harry Davenport as Luigi Walter Abel as Major Horvath/Benvenuto Reginald Gardiner as Alberto Virginia Campbell as Theresa Harry Cording as Orlando (uncredited) Production In 1942, 20th Century Fox purchased the screen rights to the 1919 operetta Die Frau im Hermelin, which had served as the basis of the 1922 stage musical Lady in Ermine by Al Goodman, Harry Graham, and Cyrus Wood. The operetta previously had been filmed twice, in 1927 as The Lady in Ermine, starring Corinne Griffith and Einar Hanson, and in 1930 as Bride of the Regiment with Vivienne Segal and Walter Pidgeon. At the time, the studio announced Irene Dunne would star in the dual roles of Angelina and Francesca, and a few months later, Charles Boyer was announced as her co-star, but nothing came of the project. When Ernst Lubitsch became involved, he initially wanted Jeanette MacDonald for the female lead, although Fox production chief Darryl F. Zanuck preferred Gene Tierney, opposite either Cornel Wilde or Rex Harrison. The Production Code Administration deemed an early draft of the screenplay "unacceptable" because "adultery and suspicion of adultery [were] treated for comedy without any compensating moral values." PCA Director Joseph Breen suggested Angelina be portrayed as anxious to preserve her marriage and Mario be the one