Love is a Ball (1963)

Interesting facts

Love Is a Ball is a 1963 romantic comedy film directed by David Swift and starring Glenn Ford, Hope Lange, and Charles Boyer. It is based on the novel The Grand Duke and Mr. Pimm by Lindsay Hardy.

Production

The novel was published in 1959. Rights were bought by Martin H. Poll of Gold Medal Enterprises; Poll owned Gold Medal Studios in the Bronx, facilities which were hired out to movie makers. He had decided to move into film production. The screenplay was originally written by the author of the novel.

Ford and Lange were signed to star early on. They were already an off-screen couple. Ford had persuaded Frank Capra to cast Lange as his co-star (instead of Shirley Jones) in the 1961 film Pocketful of Miracles, and Lange divorced her husband, fellow actor Don Murray, on July 7, 1961.

Blake Edwards was originally to direct. Eventually David Swift came in to write and direct. Swift had an unhappy time working with Ford, later stating:

Glenn Ford is a man who, I find, approaches his craft like a twelve-year-old temperamental child. Were he mine I would have spanked him physically. But the industry sees fit to accord a star with adult reprimands instead of treating him with childish reprimands. Some of our actors feel they can quit at four o'clock because they're emotionally whacked. So we came to blows about the four o'clock quitting time.

Ulla Jacobsson signed to make her American debut with the film.

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