The real-life Women's Institute members (Angela Baker, Beryl Bamforth, Christine Clancy, Ros Fawcett, Lynda Logan and Tricia Stewart) on which this movie was based all appear as members of Highgyll W.I. in the scene in the marquee at Knapely Show where Rylstone and Highgyll are competing for cookery prizes.
During the making of this movie, Dame Helen Mirren's brother was dying of cancer. She was given the news he had died on the day they came to film the funeral scenes. Her tears and grief are real.
Contrary to the depiction in this movie, the proposal for the calendar enjoyed broad support in the Women's Institute organization.
The original "calendar girls" were members of the Rylstone Women's Institute, but much of this movie was shot in and around the village of Kettlewell in North Yorkshire, around ten miles away. Additional locations in England include Buckden, Burnsall, Coniston, Ilkley, Settle, Linton, Malham, Skipton, Westminster, and Ealing in London.
This was Graham Crowden's final movie before his death on October 19, 2010 at the age of eighty-seven.