After bidding fond farewells to Avery and Tom, Cornelia and Emily board the ship home, ending their European misadventures. Principal photography on "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay" began on August 24, 1943 and continued until October 21, 1943. Added scenes began shooting on November 10, 1943. Although Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough, on whose memoirs the film is based, worked on the script, they were not credited, although Emily did have a "bit" part in the film. In casting, a number of actors were considered including Katharine Hepburn to play Cornelia, with Jane Withers and Mimi Chandler also tested for roles in the film. Film critic Armond White (A.W.) in reviewing "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay" for "The New York Times" said, "Obviously not designed to deliver a message, "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay", Paramount's film version of the Cornelia Otis Skinner-Emily Kimbrough book of remembrances of hectic things past, lives up to its title. Blithely recalling the trip abroad made by those ladies when they were in their impressionable 'teens, its story is as light as a marshmallow and sometimes as cloyingly sweet. Although the picture's foreword coyly denies that it is intended as a period piece, it very often uses the devices of dated clothes and manners to garner laughs. If the film occasionally stumbles on its merry way, blame it on those arid humorless stretches when "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay" becomes more young than gay. Generally, however, the producers have fused the effervescence of youth with rosy-tinted nostalgia to make an amusing and satisfying entertainment." In 1945, although a news item in "The Hollywood Reporter" indicated that Skinner and Kimbrough took legal action against Paramount to prevent a sequel to "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay", a judge ruled in favor of the studio. In the sequel, "Our Hearts Were Growing Up" (1946), Gail Russell, Diana Lynn, James Brown and Bill Edwards reprised their roles.