Rattigan, then a Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant, was posted in 1943 to the RAF Film Production Unit to work on The Way to the Stars and Journey Together.
The title of the shortened American version, Johnny in the Clouds, is derived from the poem recited in the film as a tribute to a dead aviator.
A similar approach is used in the opening and closing scenes of an abandoned airfield in the later 1949 film Twelve O'Clock High,[5] which is set on the fictional RAF Archbury.
While Penrose develops into a first-class pilot, he meets Iris Winterton, a young woman living with her domineering aunt at the Golden Lion Hotel in the nearby town.
720 Squadron is sent to the Middle East, but Penrose remains behind as a ground controller for a United States Army Air Forces B-17 Flying Fortress bombardment group, which takes over the airfield.
On 17 August 1942 the American airmen participate in the first attack by the USAAF on Occupied France, later ruefully acknowledging that they underestimated the difficulties involved.
Hollis, who has formed a platonic relationship with Toddy, is killed while trying to land his battle-damaged B-17 with a hung up bomb aboard, rather than safely bail out and risk crashing into the local village or another town.
The film ends with American and British airmen leaving the Golden Lion Hotel, watched by Toddy, as David's voice recites the poem "For Johnny".
Archdale is portrayed as reciting it to Toddy shortly before their marriage, after his close friend Squadron Leader Carter is killed in action.
The second and better-known of the two poems in the film is "For Johnny", depicted as having been found by Peter Penrose on a piece of paper after David Archdale's death.
During the war, Rattigan served in the Royal Air Force as a tail gunner and used his wartime experiences to help inspire his earlier stage play, Flare Path.
[12] One of the USAAF aircrew involved recorded in his diary seeing B-17s of the 384th Bombardment Group (Heavy) and ground scenes including the crash of Captain Holliss' B-17 being filmed at Grafton Underwood.
[18][19] The 'biggest winners' at the box office in 1945 Britain were The Seventh Veil, with "runners up" being (in release order), Madonna of the Seven Moons, Old Acquaintance, Frenchman's Creek, Mrs Parkington, Arsenic and Old Lace, Meet Me in St Louis, A Song to Remember, Since You Went Away, Here Come the Waves, Tonight and Every Night, Hollywood Canteen, They Were Sisters, The Princess and the Pirate, The Adventures of Susan, National Velvet, Mrs Skefflington, I Live in Grosvenor Square, Nob Hill, Perfect Strangers, Valley of Decision, Conflict and Duffy's Tavern.
It also puts into relief the film's main focus: Penrose's development from callow youth into a burned-out, emotionally detached pilot and his eventual return to life and love".