According to writer Robert Pirosh, he and Joseph Schrank were disappointed not to be allowed to do the screenplay adaptation of their own original story. Studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck wanted them to work on another project, so Ken Englund and an uncredited Emeric Pressburger did the screenplay, instead. Other changes were made in pre-production; Irving Cummings had been announced to direct, only to be replaced by Rouben Mamoulian, and comedienne Helen Broderick (mother of Broderick Crawford) had to drop out of the film and fly to New York when her mother fell ill, and Spring Byington replaced her. The script itself had to undergo revisions in October 1941 when the censors objected to intimations of "a sex affair without compensating moral values" between Fonda and Tierney. Further objections by officials included a request that a list of names mentioned in the film be changed, since "Irene, Mabel and Betty" were all names of condom brands. Writer Ken Englund replied that his wife's name was Mabel and that it was his own private joke to use her name for a character in all of his scripts. He wrote that he was considering "having my wife's name legally changed to Sam," and that producer Milton Sperling's wife should change her name from Betty to Fred. The script's woes continued for another nine years when the studio was sued in 1950 by Andrea Dello Siesto, who charged Twentieth Century-Fox with plagiarism, claiming that they had based Rings on Her Fingers on his play Le due leggi di Maud (The Two Laws of Maud). The studio eventually settled for $1,500.
Under the working title of Double or Nothing shooting began during the first week of December 1941 on location at Santa Catalina Island, twenty-six miles off the coast of Southern California. Gene Tierney's then-husband, designer Oleg Cassini, later remembered that the company was working on Sunday, December 7th. Just as director Mamoulian was about to call "Action!" an assistant came running up, screaming that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, and the company needed to pack everything up and get back to the mainland immediately. They would return to a California soon to be plunged into a mandatory nighttime blackout and the threat of invasion. The war wasn't the only thing on Cassini's mind. He was nervous about his wife working with Henry Fonda, with whom she had made her first film, The Return of Frank James (1940). "Henry Fonda made it difficult for me to like him. When he and Gene were working together on Rings on Her Fingers he struck me as rather arrogant. He had that wonderful voice and easy manner, and he seemed to exude a confidence that he could seduce Gene any time he wanted. [...] There was a real tension between us, but never a confrontation. [... ] Later in life, we became quite friendly."
Filming ended in late January, with retakes done beginning on February 5th. Rings on Her Fingers went into general release in April 1942 with critics decidedly lukewarm. The anonymous "T.S." complained about Tierney's acting ability in his review in the New York Times. After playing "ruinous" roles in her earlier films, Twentieth Century-Fox finally "allowed [Tierney] to resemble a human being, if not an actress. An actress, we suspect, should have a little more equipment than Expression A for rapture, B for apprehension, etc. A slight sense of timing helps, too, in confections such as this, as does a sense of when a moonstruck scene is no longer lunar, but loony. Mayhap Miss Tierney will learn these things with time. [...] Not that Miss Tierney receives any assistance from the scenarists, who haven't sprung any mental seams in an effort to be original. [...] To this overworked escapade, Henry Fonda brings his stupefied sort of charm, injecting some humor into the character of the fleeced accountant; Laird Cregar floats about the screen like a buoyant elephant, and Spring Byington brings a ladylike touch to the female swindler. Here and there they uncover a droll moment, making Rings on Her Fingers an interesting exercise to say the least."
by Lorraine LoBianco
SOURCES:
Davis, Ronald L. Words into Images: Screenwriters on the Studio System Hardcover
The Internet Movie Database
T.S. "'Rings on Her Fingers,' at the Roxy, Stars Gene Tierney and Henry Fonda" The New York Times 24 Apr 42
Vogel, Michelle Gene Tierney: A Biography
