A watershed moment in Preminger’s career came at the beginning of the 1950s when one of the most reliable employees in the history of the Hollywood studio system extracted a new contract from the bosses allowing him to spend six months of the year in New York working on his own theater projects. After fulfilling the Fox condition of one studio film annually (Angel Face), he poured all his enthusiasm over his newly acquired creative independence into an adaptation of The Moon Is Blue, the work of another Viennese American, F. Hugh Herbert, that had earned Preminger success on and off Broadway two years earlier. A comedy of manners filled with witty repartee, the work introduces the attractive and disarmingly naïve acting novice Patty (Maggie McNamara). She meets young architect Donald (William Holden), whose initially flirtatious intentions are perhaps more serious than even he realizes. But soon enough a trio is formed by the arrival of middle-aged David (David Niven), a polished profligate who happens to be the father of Donald’s blasé ex Cynthia (Dawn Addams). The first in a series of highly publicized conflicts that Preminger waged against the guardians of morality, the kerfuffle came about due to the director’s frivolous use of words like “virgin,” “seduce,” and “pregnant.” But the times were irrevocably changing and United Artists managed to distribute the film – despite lacking the Production Code’s once necessary seal of approval – to 8,000 American theaters.