diff --git a/django/http/response.py b/django/http/response.py
index 94d14ddb54..da9f9ef6a6 100644
--- a/django/http/response.py
+++ b/django/http/response.py
@@ -316,13 +316,16 @@ class HttpResponse(HttpResponseBase):
     def content(self, value):
         # Consume iterators upon assignment to allow repeated iteration.
         if hasattr(value, '__iter__') and not isinstance(value, (bytes, six.string_types)):
+            content = b''.join(self.make_bytes(chunk) for chunk in value)
             if hasattr(value, 'close'):
-                self._closable_objects.append(value)
-            value = b''.join(self.make_bytes(chunk) for chunk in value)
+                try:
+                    value.close()
+                except Exception:
+                    pass
         else:
-            value = self.make_bytes(value)
+            content = self.make_bytes(value)
         # Create a list of properly encoded bytestrings to support write().
-        self._container = [value]
+        self._container = [content]
 
     def __iter__(self):
         return iter(self._container)
diff --git a/docs/ref/request-response.txt b/docs/ref/request-response.txt
index 81f992a778..675a47d8d0 100644
--- a/docs/ref/request-response.txt
+++ b/docs/ref/request-response.txt
@@ -608,11 +608,17 @@ Passing iterators
 
 Finally, you can pass ``HttpResponse`` an iterator rather than strings.
 ``HttpResponse`` will consume the iterator immediately, store its content as a
-string, and discard it.
+string, and discard it. Objects with a ``close()`` method such as files and
+generators are immediately closed.
 
 If you need the response to be streamed from the iterator to the client, you
 must use the :class:`StreamingHttpResponse` class instead.
 
+.. versionchanged:: 1.10
+
+    Objects with a ``close()`` method used to be closed when the WSGI server
+    called ``close()`` on the response.
+
 Setting header fields
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
diff --git a/docs/releases/1.10.txt b/docs/releases/1.10.txt
index 6f94154929..d932887a51 100644
--- a/docs/releases/1.10.txt
+++ b/docs/releases/1.10.txt
@@ -357,6 +357,10 @@ Miscellaneous
 * The ``add_postgis_srs()`` backwards compatibility alias for
   ``django.contrib.gis.utils.add_srs_entry()`` is removed.
 
+* Objects with a ``close()`` method such as files and generators passed to
+  :class:`~django.http.HttpResponse` are now closed immediately instead of when
+  the WSGI server calls ``close()`` on the response.
+
 .. _deprecated-features-1.10:
 
 Features deprecated in 1.10
diff --git a/tests/httpwrappers/tests.py b/tests/httpwrappers/tests.py
index 94d269c90b..53dd58da3b 100644
--- a/tests/httpwrappers/tests.py
+++ b/tests/httpwrappers/tests.py
@@ -588,18 +588,8 @@ class FileCloseTests(SimpleTestCase):
         # file isn't closed until we close the response.
         file1 = open(filename)
         r = HttpResponse(file1)
-        self.assertFalse(file1.closed)
-        r.close()
         self.assertTrue(file1.closed)
-
-        # don't automatically close file when we finish iterating the response.
-        file1 = open(filename)
-        r = HttpResponse(file1)
-        self.assertFalse(file1.closed)
-        list(r)
-        self.assertFalse(file1.closed)
         r.close()
-        self.assertTrue(file1.closed)
 
         # when multiple file are assigned as content, make sure they are all
         # closed with the response.
@@ -607,9 +597,6 @@ class FileCloseTests(SimpleTestCase):
         file2 = open(filename)
         r = HttpResponse(file1)
         r.content = file2
-        self.assertFalse(file1.closed)
-        self.assertFalse(file2.closed)
-        r.close()
         self.assertTrue(file1.closed)
         self.assertTrue(file2.closed)
 
diff --git a/tests/responses/tests.py b/tests/responses/tests.py
index 6d0588daa7..5f7a0b5e12 100644
--- a/tests/responses/tests.py
+++ b/tests/responses/tests.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ from __future__ import unicode_literals
 import io
 
 from django.conf import settings
+from django.core.cache import cache
 from django.http import HttpResponse
 from django.http.response import HttpResponseBase
 from django.test import SimpleTestCase
@@ -121,3 +122,13 @@ class HttpResponseTests(SimpleTestCase):
         with io.TextIOWrapper(r, UTF8) as buf:
             buf.write(content)
         self.assertEqual(r.content, content.encode(UTF8))
+
+    def test_generator_cache(self):
+        generator = ("{}".format(i) for i in range(10))
+        response = HttpResponse(content=generator)
+        self.assertEqual(response.content, b'0123456789')
+        self.assertRaises(StopIteration, next, generator)
+
+        cache.set('my-response-key', response)
+        response = cache.get('my-response-key')
+        self.assertEqual(response.content, b'0123456789')