Based on the play "Yesterday's Magic" by Emlyn Williams, which opened on Broadway April 14, 1942 and starred Paul Muni and Jessica Tandy.
Madden's quote, ""It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done before", is a misquote from "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens. The correct line is, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done".
According to Bennett Cerf in his 1944 book Try and Stop Me, Woolley was at a dinner party and suddenly belched. A woman sitting nearby glared at him; he glared back and said, "And what did you expect, my good woman? Chimes?" Cerf wrote, "Woolley was so pleased with this line that he insisted it be written into his next role in "Life Begins at Eight -Thirty". He uses it in the opening as Santa in the department store