Bursley, the town where this movie takes place, is a fictionalized version of Burslem, one of the constituent towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent, also known as the "Potteries" or, as in the movie, "the city of five towns".
Special promotional beermats stating "Alec is good for you", bearing the likeness of Alec Guinness (and riffing on Guinness stout's "Guinness is good for you" tagline) were printed to tie in with the film.
At the end, the town band strikes up the Colonel Bogey March. The same piece of music became better known as the theme from the Sir Alec Guinness movie Il ponte sul fiume Kwai (1957).
This movie was the first collaboration between Sir Alec Guinness and Ronald Neame as director (although Neame had been a producer on two David Lean films Guinness had appeared in, Le avventure di Oliver Twist (1948) and Grandi speranze (1946)). They made another three movies together over the years.