In his auto-biography, Max Bygraves considered this to be the film he was most proud of and was pleased with the praise given to his performance.
John Saunders' class shout out "Tell me a story! Tell me a story!" This echoes the real-life catchphrase of Max Bygraves "I wanna tell you a story".
Leading actor Max Bygraves personally funded most of the film's budget, as he felt the novel was good enough to be adapted.
The scene where Sanders is nearly seduced by one of his female pupils, wasn't included in the novel.
Donald Pleasence had played a similar character in a school setting from the TV show "The Twilight Zone."