Both play and film are presented in flashback mode and share the same subject matter – cruelty, neglect and mental and physical abuse meted out to evacuee children during World War II.

As part of the mass evacuation of children in the early months of World War II, teenage Mary O'Rane is billeted with Mrs Agatha ('Aggie') Voray in an unthreatened area in the north of England.

Mary soon discovers that, behind her respectable front, Mrs Voray forces her evacuee charges (five in all) to live in squalor and semi-starvation while spending the money intended for their upkeep on alcohol and personal fripperies.

"[3] Directed by Anthony Hawtrey, No Room at the Inn opened at the Embassy Theatre in Swiss Cottage, north London on 10 July 1945, with Freda Jackson, Ursula Howells, Joan Dowling and Ruth Dunning heading a cast of 14.

The screenplay by producer Ivan Foxwell and poet Dylan Thomas made various changes to Temple's play – opening it out to include Mrs Voray's encounters with local tradesmen, the Town Council and, finally, a monied spiv; conflating the extremely similar characters of Kate Grant and Judith Drave into one (Judith); changing the surname of Joan Dowling's character and having her recount a cockney version of the Cinderella story, and radically altering the nature of Mrs Voray's demise.

Opening in London on 25 October, with general release following on 22 November,[13] the film was described in the trade paper To-Day's Cinema as "a brutal citation of sordidness and cruelty which has no parallel on British screens.