I had a problem because it looked like a fairly simple set, but I always was wondering how – in these American dance numbers of the '30s and '40s – the floors were so shiny and... and not a scratch on them and so on, and I... I had learnt my lesson from Kubrick's [Dr.] Strangelove when I tried to do a black shiny floor and it looked like a seascape, you know, until we found out that we had to have its under-floor and a much heavier section of wood.

So now I'm in Hollywood where they have done this thing for films and films, and the construction manager, who was reasonably young, said to me, ‘Ken, you don't have to worry, you want a shiny floor, I will give you a shiny floor, you know, we've done it before’. I said, ‘Well, you know, be my guest, I'll be happy’, you know, and of course Herb [Ross] and I, we arrived about two days before shooting to look at the floor, and the floor's no good, whereas Fred Astaire's floor done 20 years before or something like that, you don't see a scratch or anything. You look at some of these old musicals of Astaire's or Gene Kelly and those men.

So now this reasonably young construction manager spends sleepless nights, I mean, nearly suicidal, rings up everybody he knows in Hollywood and eventually came up with a terrazzo floor, which was cast and, you know, it's like concrete. I mean it's... it's liquid, and then hardens like marble, terrazzo, and then you polish it and it is… it becomes perfect. I mean, there are no unevenness, it's... it's the perfect floor.

The problem which nobody thought about, it's damn tough on the dancers because it's... it gets so hard, there's no spring in it at all, that they all had pretty painful legs after, but... but at least it worked, you see, and it is… I mean, it is a big treat to see Steve and Bernadette Peters dancing together with Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, but I think it worked.