The unnamed religion Susan found fashionable was based on a real Christian movement created by Lutheran Rev. Frank N. D. Buchman, which he named the Oxford Group and it later became known as Moral Re-armament. He denied it was a religion, explaining that it was a group of like-minded individuals wishing to surrender to God and was without any organization, nor membership.
The play was originally bought as a starring vehicle for Norma Shearer, who balked at playing a mother again so soon after The Women (1939) and instead set her cap on the role of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (1940), an assignment studio chief Louis B. Mayer ultimately bestowed upon Greer Garson.
The stage version tried out in Princeton, NJ, and opened on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre on 10/7/1937, where it ran for 288 performances. Gertrude Lawrence had one of her greatest personal successes in the role of Susan.