In real life, shortly after shooting was completed, Greer Garson married Richard Ney, who plays her son Vin in the film.
Winston Churchill once said that this film had done more for the war effort than a flotilla of destroyers.
The closing speech, delivered by the vicar (Henry Wilcoxon) at the end of the film, was written by Wilcoxon and director William Wyler the night before it was filmed. Wyler had grown dissatisfied with the speech the screenwriters had come up with, and convinced Wilcoxon to help him improve it. The speech proved to be integral to the film's success and was distributed across America and Europe in order to boost wartime morale amongst soldiers and civilians alike.
The Vicar's final rousing speech was printed in magazines like "Time" and "Look". President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that it be broadcast on the Voice of America, and copies of it were dropped over Europe as propaganda. This speech has come to be known as The Wilcoxon Speech, in tribute to actor Henry Wilcoxon's stirring delivery of it.
After completing the film, William Wyler joined the US Army and was posted to the Signal Corps. He was overseas on the night he won his first Oscar. He later revealed that his subsequent war experiences made him realize that the film had portrayed war in too soft a light.
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