"A Miracle Can Happen" was the original title of this film when released on Feb. 3, 1948 at the Warner Theater in Manhattan. It consisted of three short stories (about 20-25 minutes each) linked by the Burgess Meredith character. He played a reporter looking for a good scoop, and in the second sequence, Charles Laughton played a bible-reading minister. When it was released nationally in June, however, it had been decided that the religious story would be dropped and replaced by a more comic one featuring Dorothy Lamour. The film in this new version was then re-titled "On Our Merry Way". However, prints of the original film had already been sent abroad for dubbing. In Spain, "A Miracle Can Happen" became "Una Encuesta Llamada Milagro", complete with the original Laughton sequence intact (but without the alternative Lamour story). As it has been released on DVD there and retains the English-language soundtrack, the movie can be seen as it was originally intended.
The first film in which best friends James Stewart and Henry Fonda appear together. Their other two pairings are Firecreek (1968) and The Cheyenne Social Club (1970).
Charles Laughton played a minister in one sequence which, because of its dramatic tone in an otherwise frothy comedy, wound up on the cutting room floor. Laughton's segment was replaced with a parody of Dorothy Lamour's South Seas movie epics. Independent producer David O. Selznick offered to buy the film in order to issue the Laughton sequence as a short, scrapping the rest of the picture. Selznick's plan was rejected by producer Benedict Bogeaus and producer-star Burgess Meredith.
Fred MacMurray and William Demarest would be connected again 18 years later, when Demarest replaced William Frawley in My Three Sons (1960), which starred MacMurray.
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