Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, who play rivals in this film, lived together on and off between 1932 and 1944.
Leo McCarey was supposed to direct the film, but shortly before the filming began, he was injured in an automobile accident and had to hand over the direction to Garson Kanin. Actress Gail Patrick has stated that the severity of McCarey's injuries had an effect on the film's cast, and they found it very difficult to enter into the spirit of the comedy with the serious hospital bulletins they were hearing.
Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, "Enoch Arden," about a fisherman presumed lost at sea who returns to find his wife remarried, was the basis of five prior films: Enoch Arden (1914), Die Toten kehren wieder - Enoch Arden (1919), and D.W. Griffith's Enoch Arden: Part I (1911), Enoch Arden: Part II (1911), and Enoch Arden (1915). Those films adhered to Tennyson's poem. But in My Favorite Wife, Something's Got to Give (1962), and Move Over, Darling (1963), only the basic idea of a spouse who returns is kept, with the spouse presumed lost now being the wife. However, in all of these films, the surname of the couple in question remains "Arden."