 Her unruly curly blonde hair and smiling face struck Miller as so appealing that he came to believe he could make a successful movie around that alone.He had to build a story for the little girl, and borrowed from the 1937 French movie La Grande Illusion, where an escaped hardened prisoner hides out in the home of a young widow, and is softened by the kindness of her daughter.Miller titled the story after his daughter Savannah.