Despite its Broadway success, Pal Joey took his time reaching the screen. Gene Kelly came to fame in the title role in the original Broadway production of Pal Joey and was the logical first choice for the screen version but when MGM would not lend him out the project sat on the backburner so long that his intended co-star Rita Hayworth swapped female roles to play the older woman who bankrolls Joey's club - on her terms - by the time the film finally reached the screen in 1957.