Details

Release year: 1963

Storyline

When the kids of a young widow inadvertently send an SOS while playing with their uncle Cy's Navy Signal Lamp, the Navy sends their top man to investigate and he falls for their mother.

Top credits

Directors

George Sidney

Writers

Cast

Shirley Jones — Amy Martin
Gig Young — Key Weedon
Red Buttons — Flight Officer Simon 'Uncle Cy' Shelley
Carolyn Jones — Tandy Martin

See all 49 credits →

Did you know

• Reportedly Shirley Jones and Carolyn Jones, who according to standard movie set etiquette would both have been addressed as "Miss Jones," were instead addressed on-set as respectively "Mrs. Cassidy" and "Mrs. Spelling," referencing Shirley Jones' marriage to Jack Cassidy and Carolyn Jones' marriage to Aaron Spelling.

• Originally the production was intended to be a vehicle for Jean Simmons. Contract obligations, however, were at play and Shirley Jones ended up with the role. After an Academy-award winning performance in Elmer Gantry (1960), she was hoping to concentrate on serious roles, but instead Jones was assigned to comedies such as The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1963). Jones reluctantly fulfilled her contract despite her reluctance to take on "fluff" roles in a rom-com like A Ticklish Affair (1963). Jones said: "I wasn't thrilled with the idea of doing comedy. The studios usually referred to them as 'sophisticated comedies.' Too often they were neither." Jones soon left Hollywood behind to star in Broadway productions, and later as the matron of television's The Partridge Family (1970).

• Carolyn Jones formed a long-lasting friendship with co-star Red Buttons' s wife: the former Alicia Pagan: dating at the time of the ''Ticklish Affair'' shoot, Buttons and Pagan would marry in January 1964. Alicia Pagan Buttons would be at Carolyn Jones' side when the latter passed away August 3 1983.