The episode's director Victor Saville extended an invitation to British stage musical star Jessie Matthews, then in New York City preparing for a Broadway role, to replace Garson (Saville had helmed the most successful films made by Matthews in her homeland in the 1930s): Matthews agreed to film Garson's intended scenes over three days in Hollywood in September 1941, playing opposite Ian Hunter whose services MGM had donated to cover for Colman (Hunter had been Matthews' leading man in one of her lesser films: "The Man from Toronto" (1933)). The fourth episode was set to film in the autumn of 1941 after Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock - the leading man and director - had completed the film "Suspicion": the availability of the episode's leading lady: Ida Lupino, was a non-issue, the actress being on suspension at Warner Bros. When the filming of "Suspicion" ran overtime preventing both Grant and Hitchcock from filming the fourth episode in September 1941 Brian Aherne replaced Grant as Lupino's leading man, with René Clair replacing Hitchcock as director. Filming on the fifth episode - with Edmund Goulding directing leading players Robert Cummings and Merle Oberon - began 27 November 1941, with the film as originally envisioned completed after the filming day of 1 December 1941: however the 8 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor infused in Hardwicke the need to modify the film to reflect the direct involvement in World War II which Pearl Harbor made inevitable. When the film remained incomplete several months into 1942, RKO - who by then had spent $100,000 over the agreed $300,000 production costs budget - insisted the film be "wrapped" and made ready for release, assigning Frank Lloyd to direct Kent Smith and Ruth Warrick - both RKO contract players - in a "framing" segment set in 1941 which would open and close the film also popping up between the second and third episode. It was hoped that "Forever and a Day" could be released in November 1942: however the film would not be released until March 1943. In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret (Kent Smith) is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Lesley Trimble (Ruth Warrick), tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.