Harry's 22 pound winnings in 1930, with inflation, would be worth 8,000 pounds in 2024, according to the Bank of England inflation converter.
There was considerable difficulty getting the film released in the US. The Production Code Administration found "insufficient compensating moral values for illicit sex", and objected to the profanity and use of vulgar expressions, and even favourable reviews in the Irish Catholic press failed to sway their opinion. In 1945, Anglo-American agreed to record additional dialogue suggesting that Sally and Grundy were married, cut eighteen pages of the script and the scene where Mrs Hardcastle bathes her husband.
Attempts to make the film during the 1930s were blocked by the British Board of Film Censors. Permission was only granted when the Second World War had swept aside the high unemployment and social conditions of the period the film is set in.
After the Wall Street crash in October of 1929 in United States, hundreds of millions of people all over the world were out of work. There were very few films in the world that dealt with the subject of the unemployment, because it was painful to talk about it in particular in those days 1930-1935. Many films only quoted that in the 30th times were very difficult for everybody. Today there are many documentaries and books about the crise.
Deborah Kerr recalled that this featured her first screen kiss but that in a quest for realism the director had real, rotting refuse put in the neighboring bins.
Ronald Gow first adapted Walter Greenwood's novel into a play in 1934, the first success of his future wife Wendy Hiller as Sally. The production opened in Manchester, toured Britain with a run in London, as well as New York and Paris.